Sold for: $28,125

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Alberta
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 25th, 2005, lot 146
Private Collection, Victoria

LITERATURE
William Gough, The Art of David Blackwood, 1988, reproduced plate 20, Home in Wesleyville, unpaginated
E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News, 1993, reproduced on the cover
William Gough, David Blackwood, 2001, reproduced pages 32 and 33

Chosen as the cover for Annie Proulx’s award-winning novel The Shipping News, this important print is a record of an event that Blackwood witnessed in the Newfoundland community of Wesleyville in the 1940s. Houses there were built without foundations, and since resources were scarce, the moving of a house was sometimes undertaken rather than re-building. Job Sturge wanted his house in a new location and enlisted the help of the community to move it. The Union Jack is flying because up until 1949, Newfoundland was a colony of Great Britain. The anchor in the foreground is symbolic of the fishing heritage of the area, and the powerful rays of the sun and the hardy Arctic tern flying overhead are signs of hope.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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