Good News by William Raphael

Provenance:
Canadian Fine Arts, Toronto
Acquired by the present Private Collection, 2017

Exhibited:
“Trésors des collectionneurs II / Collectors’ Treasures II”, Galerie Eric Klinkhoff, Montreal, 24 October – 7 November 2020, no. 25

A landscape, genre, portrait and still life painter, William Raphael is well known for his small oil paintings of single figures. The subjects included a coachman, an organ-grinder, a moccasin seller, a pedlar, and a newspaper vendor, among others. While his treatment of a habitant in an interior, such as “Preparing for a Smoke” (sold Cowley Abbott, 1 December 2022, lot 135), was reworked in variant compositions, others are known by single examples. This study of a man selling newspapers on a Montreal street appears to be unique and would fall into a body of work he exhibited as a Canadian Character, a title he gave to two paintings in the third exhibition of the Society of Canadian Artists in March 1871.

The characterization of the vendor is masterful. He is warmly wrapped in a cloth coat, vest and sweater, his ruddy face and red hair covered by a rough fur hat, his feet protected by thick boots. Standing by a gas lamppost, his bare hands hold copies of the Montreal, English language papers the “Evening Star” (founded in 1869) and the “Daily Witness”, an evangelical Protestant temperance movement paper, first published in 1845. The choice of newspapers raises questions about their relationship and necessary competition. Is there a satirical intent or social commentary to be discovered in this wonderful painting?

We extend our thanks to Charles Hill, Canadian art historian, former Curator of Canadian Art at the National Gallery of Canada and author of “The Group of Seven‒Art for a Nation”, for his assistance in researching this artwork and for contributing the preceding essay.