Provenance:

Marlborough Godard Gallery, Toronto/Montreal

Literature:

Michael Bell, Colville, Being Seen: the serigraphs, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, 1994, page 40, cat.no.12 for Sunrise, (Collection of Graham Colville), reproduced.

David Burnett, Colville – Prints/Estampes, Department of External Affairs, Arts Promotion Division, Ottawa, 1985, page 10, for Sunrise/Lever du soleil, 1970, reproduced.

Helen J. Dow, The Art of Alex Colville, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, Toronto, 1972, page 87, and page 195, plate 99 for Sunrise, reproduced in colour.

Note:

Dow writes that for Colville “the highest art, like marriage, required concentrated effort.” She continues: “At least one of his works appear to deal with this analogy, though indirectly, by again examining the nature of love. This is his picture, Sunrise, a serigraph which he executed in 1970... The print portrays a woman silhouetted in purplish tones against the glowing rays of a coral sun as she glides mysteriously past a dark embankment in the graceful embrace of a canoe. In a consideration of the nature of art, however, it is the dramatic juxtaposition of the woman with the rising sun which is especially significant. For just as the sun rises uninvited in the sense that it appears without human control, so love, as the reverse of art, happens suddenly and without conscious effort. To Colville, the mystery of love is a sheer gift while, conversely, marriage in itself is an art, that is to say something premeditated and intentionally planned. For him, all art must be the product of a similarly rational activity.”