Crescent Street After Snowstorm, 1997

Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal Private Collection, Montreal

Alan Klinkhoff Gallery, “John Little: City Life From 1951”, Toronto/ Montreal, 2017, page 9

John Little has earned a celebrated reputation for his devotion to the commemoration of the downtown streets and neighbourhoods of his environs, specifically Montreal and Quebec. Little’s unique and painterly approach in his paintings both record and celebrate the many disappearing – or already vanished – places in these regions. As Little remarked of Montreal in 1961, “there is so much in this city worth preserving.” The snowbank-lined walkways in “Crescent Street After Snowstorm” have been trampled down by pedestrians, establishing a decidedly inhabited feel. The composition engages the viewer as an active participant, as though they are walking behind the group of figures up ahead, perhaps even exiting to a row home at the left edge of the painting.