John Hall, Twilight, acrylic on canvas, 1980

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Twilight, 1980

acrylic on canvas

signed, titled and inscribed “completed April 18, ‘80” and “New York” on the reverse; sold together with “Maquette for Twilight”, mixed media, contained within a shadow box (9 ins x 8.25 ins x 4.25 ins)

44 × 44 in (111.8 × 111.8 cm)

Auction Estimate:$7,000 - $9,000

Sale date:September 24, 2020

Price Realized

$6,600

(including Buyer's Premium)

Provenance

Wynick/Tuck Gallery, Toronto Private Collection, Toronto

Literature

Shannon Moore, “The Relevance of Realism: John Hall at the Kelowna Art Gallery”, National Gallery of Canada Magazine, May 11, 2016 [online]

John Hall was born in Edmonton and studied at the Alberta College of Art and Design as well as the Instituto Allende in Mexico. He went on to teach at the Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, and the Alberta College of Art before accepting a permanent position at the University of Calgary from 1971 to 1998. John Hall draws his inspiration from everyday objects to create vivid hyperrealistic paintings. Hall explains, “I ask people to give me things that are important to them, and then I arrange them into some sort of coherent form... I enjoy playing with the idea of taking the most mundane item and turning it into something of pictorial interest and delight.” Detailed and intricate, his works encourage the viewer to spend time with the composition, to take in its detail and consider the work. On the artist's practice in realism, curator Liz Wylie explains, “there are existential questions that you start to think about if you look past the realism. If you ask why he picked that doughnut, or what the meaning of the coffee cup is, you’ll really get into what he’s grappling with as a highly intelligent, intellectual person.” Accompanying this work is a shadow box maquette which the artist used to complete the final canvas work, housing the intricate arrangement of items, signalling the complexity of urban contemporary life.