Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Toronto.

Literature:

Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, Charles Pachter, Toronto, 1992, page 87 and colour plates 89-91 for other works from the 1981 The Painted Flag series.

Note:

In her 1992 book, Charles Pachter, Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov discusses the Toronto artist’s beginnings in depicting Canada’s flag and the comparison of Pachter’s The Painted Flag series to the depictions of the American flag by contemporary American artist, Jasper Johns:

“In June of 1980, Pachter began a series of paintings which later eclipsed his streetcar and queen on moose themes in capturing the public imagination. After building an improvised flagpole on his Oro farm, he observed the different configurations produced by the rippling flag in rapid succession. He photographed hundreds of variations for later reference. This approach was different from that of American artist Jasper Johns, whose unmodulated grid-like studies of the American flag were seen less as patriotic symbols than as points of departure for formal abstractions. In contrast, Pachter painted the Canadian flag hovering in the air, observed from various angles and distances with emphasis on light and shadow.

By surrounding the chiaroscuro surface of the flag image with flat acrylic colour as background, Pachter showed an element of virtuosity comparable with Johns, who manipulated encaustic…to produce an effect of multi-layered translucency.

In variations on this theme, Pachter alternated the scale of the flag to pole, or abandoned the pole altogether. He also introduced different background shades of blue and improbable hues such as black and pink, suffusing The Painted Flags with an aura that extended far beyond the moment captured.”