PETER CLAPHAM SHEPPARD, O.S.A., R.C.A.
ELIZABETH STREET, TORONTO
signed; with the estate stamp on the reverse
30 ins x 36 ins; 73.7 cms x 88.9 cms
November 19, 2018
Estimate $40,000-$60,000
Realised: $204,000
Record Price Achieved- $204,000
The group of Toronto Ward paintings produced by Sheppard, of which this lot is one of his finest, were executed at the beginning of the 1930s. Sheppard had painted the cities of Montreal and New York a few years earlier. Upon returning to Toronto, he turned his eye to a relatively poor neighbourhood rich in subject matter that had also attracted Lawren Harris who himself had immortalized the subject. Like Harris, Sheppard sought to capture the Ward’s “gritty working class streets (particularly Louisa and Elizabeth Streets), alleys, houses and shacks as portraits of resilient survival in places defined by transition and impoverishment.”
Canadian Fine Art
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