RCA
1935 -2022
Canadian
Stills, Willows
acrylic on canvas, 1971
on verso signed and titled and titled Stills: Willows on the exhibition label
66 1/8 x 72 in, 168 x 182.9 cm
Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000 CAD
Sold for: $169,250
Preview at:
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Toronto
LITERATURE
Terrence Heath, Ivan Eyre: Personal Mythologies / Images of the Milieu, Figurative Paintings, 1957 – 1988, Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1988, reproduced page 80 and listed page 127
EXHIBITED
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Ivan Eyre: Personal Mythologies / Images of the Milieu, Figurative Paintings, 1957 – 1988, traveling in 1988 - 1990 to the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary; Edmonton Art Gallery; and London Regional Art Gallery
Ivan Eyre was born in Tullymet, Saskatchewan, and later moved to Winnipeg, where in 1959 he joined the University of Manitoba School of Art faculty as professor of painting and drawing. He is renowned for his diverse body of work, which includes panoramic landscapes, urban dystopias and figurative works such as this. Stills, Willows is imbued with elements of Surrealism and uses imagery that relates to men in classical Greek pottery, creating a hyper-imaginary realm. In 1971, Eyre was using the “invented” human figures from his drawing books, particularly images of bearded men, which he placed in mythological tableaus. In Stills, Willows he positioned them in a complex, layered image - in the background in a stylized landscape and in a side panel with a fractured face reminiscent of Cubism. The different sections of the work set up contradictions: the central abstracted interior with objects is contemporary, the side panel like a figure in an ancient frieze, and the background a surreal juxtaposition of landscape and stylized men. Stills, Willows is a complex and intriguing work in which Eyre’s bearded man is, as he explained, an “idea only…he 'lives' only within the realm of the painting.”
Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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