Dufferin Terrace, Winter, circa 1950

Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal Canadian Fine Arts, Toronto Acquired by the present Private Collection, October 2017

A.K. Prakash, “Impressionism in Canada: A Journey of Rediscovery”, Stuttgart, 2015, pages 621 and 632

Similar to Maurice Cullen, Robert Pilot's most renowned work focuses on the villages and towns of Quebec and eastern Canada. A.K. Prakash, describing the work for which Pilot received accolades throughout his life, says that through his work, the painter “offered his own interpretation of the Canadian landscape, one he handled with great visual clarity and sharp focus. 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’s poetic compositions share the same search for identity that motivated J.W. Morrice, Clarence Gagnon and Albert Robinson - his Quebec predecessors and counterparts. Pilot preferred to paint the landscape of Quebec, which he often frequented, recording the local conditions of the time and of people co-existing with nature. “He generally excluded the new world from his record – there is, for example, a noticeable absence of automobiles in his compositions,” notes Prakash. “Rather, his paintings convey a precise image of a world that was soon to disappear.” “Dufferin Terrace, Winter” depicts the famous boardwalk located next to the Château Frontenac, offering a stunning view of the St. Lawrence River and surrounding area. The loose brushwork and limited colour palette of grey, white and brown recall the work of the European Impressionists; however, Pilot has applied these methods to a wintry subject that remains quintessentially Canadian.