Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, October 1987
Private Collection, Nova Scotia
Exhibited
"Mary Pratt: Aspects of a Ceremony", Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, 9-31 October, 1986
“Mary Pratt/Recent Paintings”, Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, 13 November-2 December 1987 as “Barbi in the Dress She Made”
"Mary Pratt", The Rooms, St. John’s, travelling to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax; Art Gallery of Windsor; the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario and the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, May 2013-August 2014 as “Barby in the Dress She Made Herself”
Literature
Gerta Moray, "Mary Pratt", Toronto/Montreal, 1989, page 35, reproduced page 147
Tom Smart, "The Art of Mary Pratt: The Substance of Light", Fredericton, 1995, reproduced page 114
"ARTSatlantic", no. 54, Winter 1996, reproduced on cover
Alice Munro, "No Love Lost", Toronto, 2003, reproduced on cover
Mirielle Eagan, Sarah Fillmore and Caroline Stone, "Mary Pratt", Newfoundland and Labrador, 2016, reproduced page 87
Anne Koval, "Mary Pratt: A Love Affair with Vision", Fredericton, 2023, reproduced page 215
In 1986 Mary Pratt held her first thematic exhibition, "Aspects of a Ceremony", at the Equinox Gallery in Vancouver, focusing on weddings and the female rite of passage. Pratt's two daughters, Anne and Barby, married that year. The paintings that the artist created to commemorate the occasions formed the basis of the exhibition. "Anne in My Garden" and "Barby in the Dress She Made Herself" both represent the pressures placed on young women seeking romantic love, while also celebrating this important milestone. Pratt undertook this project during an emotionally charged period, when family life and her ideas around marriage were changing.
Pratt was exploring the concept of marriage as a “safe harbour”, capturing a Pre-Raphelite romantic sensibility in the portrayal of Anne–a young woman depicted in a white dress in a dreamy, contemporary setting–while the painting of Barby depicts the humanity of the wedding rite. Gerta Moray explores this idea, stating, ""Barby in the Dress She Made Herself" (1986), for example, is the portrait of a bride in a pose familiar from informal eighteenth-century portraits. She is seated with her head and shoulders turning one way, her arms and legs the others, so as to show off her richly embroidered bodice." Moray likens the work to Francois Boucher’s "Madame de Pompadour". The brides assume the stereotypes of the past, while inhabiting both a sense of self-consciousness and ambivalence.
Pratt snapped a photograph of Barby seated in her studio as she gazed out at the Salmonier River on her wedding day. Pratt then aptly translated the photograph into a painting, solidifying the human presence. The distant expression on Barby’s face, combined with her clasped hands, ceremonial dress and conventional pose point to the psychological aspect of the wedding ceremony. Prior to the wedding, Pratt had travelled with her daughter to Toronto to find a dress. They did not meet with success and as the title of the work indicates, Barby made her wedding dress from purchased fabric. This intimate rendering of Barby at the age of twenty-one has an ethereal quality, infused with delicacy, warmth and soft light. The subtly of the portrayal is executed in the hallmarks of Pratt’s masterful hand. Mireille Eagan describes Mary Pratt’s art as “an illumination rather than an illustration, one in which ‘everyday life’ describes not just a reality close at hand but also aspects of life that lie hidden.”
When the "Aspects of a Ceremony" exhibition opened on October 9th, 1986, Pratt attended alone. Many fellow artists came to the opening, which Pratt described as a success, reflecting that “It made me feel light and unencumbered. I can’t easily explain the way I feel, unburdened would be accurate.” This was perhaps a revelatory moment for Pratt and marked a step forward in both her career and personal life.
