The First Winter in Canada , 1977

Isaacs Gallery Ltd., Toronto Joyner Fine Art, auction, Toronto, 18 May 1993, lot 72 Private Collection Hodgins, auction, Calgary, 16 November 1993, lot 254 Mayberry Fine Art, Winnipeg Private Collection, Winnipeg

Patricia Morley, “Kurelek”, Toronto, 1986, pages 190 and 201

“The First Winter in Canada” was painted during the last year of William Kurelek’s life, a time when the artist was preoccupied with his last monumental landscape series, Big Lonely, and the artworks he executed on his final trip to Ukraine. Patricia Morley describes Big Lonely as a series which “confirms Bill’s feeling for the vastness of Canada, and for nature as a source of joy.” Kurelek noted how the series reflected his very own experience as a “loner” who had seen this vastness of the country firsthand through his travels, having found comfort in such secluded immensity. This painting shares this sense of loneliness, capturing the enormity of life to dominate humans. The solitary figure, with only a dog as a companion, trudges along a path carved into the deep snow within the boundless space of the Canadian winter. Morley describes Kurelek's childhood as one where “he had frequently been moved to semi-mystical states of ecstasy by the play of wind and light on a natural landscape.” Through the use of a perspective that elongates the sky and shrinks the human presence, Kurelek succeeded at expressing the isolation of the winter wilderness and highlighting its beauty and power over humankind. Before his death, Kurelek completed various series on the different ethnic and religious groups in Canada, including series about the Inuit, Jewish-Canadians, French-Canadians, Polish-Canadians and Irish-Canadians. While “The First Winter in Canada” is not directly part of a series, it is related to the artworks that Kurelek executed exploring the multiculturalism of Canada and the stories of its people. The First Winter in Canada acts as a combination of a nostalgic remembrance and a celebration of life on the Canadian prairie.