Provenance:

Acquired from the artist by the present owner.
Private Collection, Toronto.

Literature:

Pierre Theberge, Greg Curnoe Retrospective, catalogue, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts / National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1982, page 114 and page 186, no.152, illustrated (collection of the National Gallery of Canada).
Douglas Fetherling, “The Curnoe Story”, Canadian Art magazine, Volume 10, Number 2, Summer/June 1993, pages 28-39 for an article written shortly after the artist’s fatal accident.

Note:

Executed December 1978-April 1979.

Curnoe was an avid cyclist and chose to go to his personal experiences when he portrayed his preferred means of locomotion, the Mariposa bicycle. Tragically, he was killed on November 14th, 1992 while on a ride with a local cycling club, the London Centennial Wheelers.

Fetherling, in his article, writes that images of the Mariposa bike became so famous that London painter, John Boyle, remembers seeing images of the Mariposa bike “hanging in restaurants in Scandinavia and hearing them praised in Germany and France.”

This work was printed by Editions Canada, London by master printers Rudolf Bikkers, Gilbert Moll and Lucy Thorel. A total of 18 colours (screens) was used in the production of this series.