Collection of Pauline Perrigard, Quebec (wife of the artist)
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal
Private Collection, Toronto
Exhibited
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Toronto, 1946, no. 94
“64th Spring Exhibition”, Art Association of Montreal, 1947
“First Annual Winter Exhibition”, Art Gallery of Hamilton, 1948
Literature
Evelyn Walters, “The Beaver Hall Group and Its Legacy”, Toronto, 2017, page 59
A member of the Beaver Hall Group, Hal Ross Perrigard was singled out as “one of the country’s most individualistic shining stars” by a reviewer of the second exhibition of the Beaver Hall Group in 1922. In “Near the Docks, Gaspé, Quebec”, Perrigard chose to depict an urban scene in Gaspé, signifying the proximity to the docks of the harbour with the placement of fishing boats in the foreground and the ever-present seagulls. Historically, codfish was one of Gaspé’s major exports, as it was found in rich supply only a few kilometres from shore. Every year hundreds of tonnes of fish were shipped to Europe, South America and the U.S. However, with the unfortunate collapse of the cod fishery in the early 1990s, tourism became the main source of employment for the area, as people visit to see where Jacques Cartier landed in 1534. This luminous and charming oil painting executed in 1946 serves as a snapshot into a past era and was included in various exhibitions until 1948. It was evidently a favourite of Perrigard’s, having been housed in his wife’s collection after the artist’s death.
