Additional Images

Provenance:

Gift of the artist to Charles Reginald Trenholme, Montreal, QC;
Private Collection, Montreal, QC;
Sotheby's, Toronto, ON, 17 May 1989, lot 165, as, Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia;
Private Collection, London, ON

Note:

By 1926 when this painting was made, Pilot was entering the full flush of his long, productive career. Having returned from his studies in Paris (1920-22), the artist’s 1925 masterwork Quebec from Lévis was exhibited at the Royal Canadian Academy exhibition and subsequently purchased by the National Gallery of Canada. He was also appointed as an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art.

Pilot, like his stepfather Maurice Cullen, was born in Newfoundland, and both painters returned periodically to Atlantic Canada to depict its people and locations. Here the subject is Peggy’s Cove, long renowned for its picturesque setting. The fishing village’s famous lighthouse was built in 1915, though Pilot eschews this more obvious view in favour of a humbler vista. Instead, he situated his easel looking in towards land at the buildings perched along the narrow inlet which forms the centre of the village—a view which remains very much intact to this day.

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