Lot 17
Philip Henry Howard Surrey, RCA (1910-1990)
Lot 17 Details
Philip Henry Howard Surrey, RCA (1910-1990), Canadian
LA PLAGE, ILE BIZARD, 1966
oil on board
signed lower left; signed and titled verso; titled to gallery label verso; titled and dated to exhibition label verso
Estimate $20,000-$30,000
Additional Images
Provenance:
Collection of The Morris Gallery, Toronto, ON
Galerie Mazarine, Montreal, QC
Joyner Waddington's, Toronto, 3 Jun 2003, lot 62
Private Collection, Vancouver, BC
Literature:
Philip Surrey, Le Peintre dans la Ville (exh. cat.) (Montreal: Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, 28 Oct - 28 Nov, 1971; Paris: Centre Culturel Canadien, 20 Jan - 20 Mar 1972), p. 30, no. 34.
Exhibited:
Philip Surrey, Le Peintre dans la Ville, Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, 28 Oct - 28 Nov, 1971.
Philip Surrey, Le Peintre dans la Ville, Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris, 20 Jan - 20 Mar 1972.
Note:
What Edward Hopper did for New York City, Surrey did for Montreal — conjuring up an evocative sense of place. In 1937, Surrey chose to settle in Montreal, a city whose streets, cafés, and working-class neighbourhoods would become central to his artistic vision for over five decades.
Ile Bizard is located in the northwest of Montreal. This painting showcases the ambiance of a summer on the edges of the city, through Surrey’s controlled, smooth, and deliberately understated brushstrokes. With softly blended edges, a subtle modelling of light, and the discreet detailing of figures, Surrey presents a quiet scene of an afternoon at the beach.
La Plage, Ile Bizard was exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art in 1971 and then at the Centre Culturel Canadien in Paris in 1972, under the number 34. In the catalogue of the exhibition, Gilles Corbeille wrote: “In the current context of painting, Philip Surrey is difficult to situate... He lived outside the major pictorial movements that marked his era. He is a local painter. I like to think that he does not see himself otherwise. [...] Surrey’s great achievement is that he knew, with admirable consistency and uncommon clarity, how to remain master of his talent and to carry it to the limits of its possibilities. What more could one ask of him?”[1]
[1] Gilles Corbeille, Philip Surrey, Le Peintre dans la Ville, Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, 1971, p. 16.