A.K. Prakash, “Impressionism in Canada: A Journey of Rediscovery”, Stuttgart, 2015, page 632
A lover of the changeable effect of light on the Quebec landscape, Robert Pilot prepared his canvases and panels methodically, creating a prolific number of paintings in both oils and pastels. Through Pilot’s work, for which he received accolades throughout his life, the painter “offered his own interpretation of the Canadian landscape, one he handled with great visual clarity and sharp focus,” writes A.K. Prakash. “Although he painted many charming subjects throughout Canada, Spain, Morocco, England, France, and Italy, it was the countryside and the urban life of old Quebec that were his preferred subjects – as they had been for Cullen, Suzor-Coté, and Gagnon before him.”
Pilot had a long, illustrious career in the Canadian art world. He was elected as President of the Royal Canadian Academy (1952-53), named to the National Academy of Design in the U.S.A. and was a principal art instructor in Montreal throughout the periods of development of the Beaver Hall Group, The Canadian Group of Painters, the Automatistes, Prisme d’Yeux and Les Plasticiens.
