Lot 14
BARKER FAIRLEY, R.C.A. (1887-1986)
Additional Images
Provenance:
Acquired directly from the artist;
Private collection, Toronto, ON
Note:
Delightfully spare, Fairley reduces the cropped rural landscape into something even more elemental and economical. Of the artist’s landscapes, former Toronto Star art critic Gary Michael Dault writes that “the leanness and severity of their composition is radical and the radiant colour that flows from each of them is irresistible.” He notes that “for most of us a tree is only a tree. For Barker—in his paintings at least—a tree is a living twist of energy that holds the sky up off the surface of the earth.”
References:
Gary Michael Dault, Barker Fairley: Portraits. (Toronto: Methuen, 1981), xv-xvi.