Lot 160
WILLIAM KURELEK, R.C.A.
Provenance:
Private Collection, Ontario.
Literature:
Patricia Morley, Kurelek: A Biography, Toronto, 1986, pages 190-191.
Joan Murray and William Kurelek, Kurelek’s Vision of Canada, Edmonton, 1983, page 10.
Note:
During the early 1960s, William Kurelek began annual excursions to Western Canada, “principally to Manitoba and Alberta, to paint the areas where he had lived as a child and which would become the basis for his most popular paintings.” Approximately an hour’s drive northeast of Edmonton, Andrew, Alberta is located less than ten kilometers from Whitford, the birthplace and early childhood home of the artist. “To outsiders, Whitford might look bleak – two grain elevators and three buildings huddled under a vast sky. But to Kurelek, even as a small child, the austere emptiness had its own charm.”
Common with many of Kurelek’s most fascinating works, “Winter Outside Andrew, Alberta” possesses minute and distinct details which provide interesting thematic dimensions to an otherwise tranquil Canadian winter landscape. The breathless chase of a hare by a pursuing wolf in the upper left corner provides an urgent and dangerous tone to the snowy scene, while the tiny copy of the Jehovah Witness magazine “The Watchtower” blowing into the bare trees on the right side of the painting ushers a religious tone into the setting. Kurelek’s exact motive to include the religious magazine is not made clear to the viewer, leaving the audience to interpret the painter’s unique perspective and intention.