Sold for: $10,625

PROVENANCE
Sold sale of Sotheby's Canada in association with Ritchie's, February 25, 2002, lot 114
Collection of Stéphane Petit, Paris (son of renowned surrealist art dealer André-François Petit)
Private Collection, France

LITERATURE
Gloria Kupchenko-Frolick, The Chicken Man, 1989, reproduced on the cover and on page 15

These two works by Manitoba artist William Kurelek were part of the prestigious collection of Stéphane Petit, son of important surrealist art dealer André-François Petit, along with works by major artists such as René Magritte, Giorgio de Chirico, and Salvador Dalí. The Chicken Man and Black Bird were part of a series of 15 works that Kurelek completed to illustrate Gloria Kupchenko Frolick’s 1976 novella The Chicken Man, chronicling the life of lonely prairie farmer John Babich. The Chicken Man was used for the book’s cover. In the acknowledgements for the book, Frolick wrote: “It was in 1976 that William Kurelek wrote to me from Saskatchewan saying that he had completed the illustrations for my novel, The Chicken Man. ‘The cover is a surrealistic public eye-catcher,’ he wrote. Adding modestly, ‘I didn’t know I had it in me.’ Later, he phoned to tell me how ‘moved’ he was by John Babich’s story. William Kurelek died in 1977.”

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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