Woman in the Garden, The Grange, 1910 by Peter Clapham Sheppard
P.C. Sheppard
Woman in the Garden, The Grange, 1910
oil on canvas
signed lower right
18 x 17 in ( 45.7 x 43.2 cm )
Auction Estimate: $5,000.00 - $7,000.00
Price Realized $7,800.00
Sale date: May 30th 2024
Private Collection, Ontario
Tom Smart, "Peter Clapham Sheppard: His Life and Work", Richmond Hill, Ontario, 2018, page 58, reproduced page 60
An expert in capturing varied scenes of life and industry in early to mid-century Canada, "Woman in the Garden, The Grange", is a testament to Sheppard’s versatility as an artist. Sheppard's body of work covers a wide range of figural works, portraits, still lifes, landscapes, city and harbour scenes, among other subjects.
"Woman in the Garden, The Grange" was Sheppard's second picture of a woman at rest in her garden. The first, "Woman in a Blue Dress", bears striking similarities in composition to George Agnew Reid's "Reading". Sheppard may have been inspired by the elderly painter, who was his instructor at the Ontario College of Art. "Woman in the Garden, The Grange" is an early picture, which shows a woman reading a book nestled between two branches of a tree. The artist's aptitude at capturing the light filtering across the scene and the rhythmic, expressive brushstrokes point to the artist's fascination with Impressionism.
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Peter Clapham Sheppard
(1882 - 1965) OSA, RCA
Peter Clapham Sheppard was born in Toronto on October 21, 1881. He apprenticed at engraving houses such as at Rolph, Clark, Stone Ltd. in Toronto, where he became a highly skilled lithographer. He received his art training at the Central Ontario School of Art and Design and the Ontario College of Art under George Reid, John William Beatty, and William Cruickshank. Between 1912 and 1914, he obtained nine Honours Diplomas for for painting and drawing and was awarded the Sir Edmund Walker Scholarship and the Stone Scholarship (Life Classes).
After 1912, Sheppard travelled extensively throughout Europe and the United States. He was elected a member of the Ontario Society of Artists in 1918 and an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1929. His works were shown in many of the annual R.C.A., O.S.A. and C.N.E. exhibitions, along side works by Tom Thomson, Frederick Varley and J.E.H. MacDonald. His artworks were also included in The British Empire Exhibition, Wembley 1925, L’Exposition D’Art Canadien, Paris 1927, The Exhibition of Contemporary Canadian Painting (Southern Dominions) 1936 and The World’s Fair, New York 1939. Sheppard’s work is held in collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Canadian War Museum and the National Gallery of Canada.
In 2010, Sheppard’s works were prominently featured in the “Defiant Spirits” exhibition at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, curated by noted Canadian author Ross King. Powerful images such as “The Building of the Bloor Street Viaduct (1916)”, “Toronto Gasworks, (1912)” and “The Engine Home, (1919)” attested to Sheppard’s unchronicled contribution to modernism and to the city of Toronto in the formative years of its art history. P.C. Sheppard’s artwork is visible at the thirty-three second mark within this “Group of Seven: Defiant Sprits Exhibition” video - http://goo.gl/FS4C7x
(Source: The Estate of the Artist)
