Christopher Pratt, who cast a mysterious and magical aura on the landscape of Newfoundland and Labrador with internationally acclaimed works of art, has died. He was 86.
He died early Sunday morning, his family said in a statement.
“He died as he wished, surrounded by family and friends at his 59-year-old home on the Salmonier River,” the family said in a statement.
He is survived by four children and another family. The famous artist Mary Pratt, described in the family statement as his “best friend and once wife”, died in 2018.
“It’s a great loss for so many people. Canada has lost a great artist,” said Emma Butler, a friend of Pratt’s and founder of the Emma Butler Gallery in St. John’s.
Pratt has often been named one of Canada’s greatest artists in the course of his extensive and successful career, earning him both the Order of Canada and the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador. His work is housed in coastal galleries, including the National Gallery of Canada.
His decades of paintings and prints have focused on the landscapes and experiences of Newfoundland: the view of the sea, the snow settling on even inverted, barren sections of the Trans-Canadian Highway. In his characteristic pedantic style, Pratt transports the audience with his often ominously lit views to a territory that exists somewhere between the realistic and the surreal.
“There’s magic in his paintings,” said Tom Smart, director of the Beaverbrook Gallery in Fredericton and author of Christopher Pratt: Six Decades.
“He’s called a magical realist for a reason. You look at his paintings and it’s almost like they’re looking back.”
Winter at Whiteway, a 2004 painting by Pratt. (Christopher Pratt / Godard Gallery)
This anxious look marked much of Pratt’s art.
“His paintings have a lot of depth,” Smart said. “You can appreciate the picture; he paints a building or a landscape that is familiar to everyone, but then when you start looking at it, you say, “Well, wait a minute – there are some things that happen here.”
Pratt made no secret of the fact that his works edited the disorder of the world. It will remove stains and straighten lines to create complex, alternate versions of reality.
“Straight lines, precision and all that – the control in my work – is just a facade,” Pratt told CBC Radio’s On The Go in 2018.
“Because my life, my thoughts, my worries and whatnot are everything but neat, controlled and tidy.”
Christopher Pratt’s 2013 painting, Argentina: The Ruins of Fort McAndrew: After the Cold War. Argentina, a former US military base since World War II on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, was Pratt’s favorite place to visit and paint. (Christopher Pratt / Godard Gallery)
From the Confederacy to the design of the flag
Pratt’s works give a few easy answers. Instead, they reward those who want to spend time with them and what they say about his deep affection for Newfoundland and Labrador.
“He loved this place. He loved this wild, unpredictable, beautiful place,” Butler said.
“And he traveled it and painted it with love and reverence. And if you can’t see the love and reverence in his paintings, then you just missed what he said.”
Pratt’s oil painting from 1998. Benoit Bay: Shelters in winter. Pratt often traveled around Newfoundland and included this fish plant in his itinerary. (Christopher Pratt / Room Collection)
This love led to an unusual honor given his line: Pratt was born in 1935, in the government gray era, after Newfoundland ceded its self-governing status to the United Kingdom and effectively operated as British territory until the Confederacy with Canada in 1949. d.
Both sides of the Pratt family go back generations in Newfoundland, and many were strongly opposed to joining Canada. Pratt became a Canadian at the age of 13 and often said that he had vivid memories and associations from the pre-Confederate era.
Then in 1980, when his career in the arts was in full swing, Pratt was chosen to design the flag of the province (until then, Union Jack was doing the work).
Pratt used his famous work ethic to create dozens of flag designs before focusing on the one that still flies today, which contains subtle allusions to the British, maritime and Beotuk history of the place.
The flag caused controversy on arrival, and Pratt himself was sometimes ambivalent about it – he once described himself as a reluctant “show doctor” who agreed under pressure to help break design deadlock among politicians – but was clear at one point.
“I did the best I could,” he told the CBC in 1980.
“I think the commission could have found a better designer, I don’t dispute that. But I would say with all modesty that they would not find anyone who is more interested in the countryside.
The provincial flag of Newfoundland and Labrador, designed by Pratt, was unveiled on April 29, 1980 (The National / CBC Archives).
“I love what I’m doing”
Pratt spent most of his life on the East Coast of Newfoundland, but left the countryside early for higher education, choosing a pre-medical degree from Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB
Medicine does not last. Pratt was attracted to the school’s Department of Fine Arts and fell under the spell of his early mentor and teacher Alex Colville, whose style influenced Pratt’s own.
Mount Alison also introduced Pratt to his future first wife, Mary, who is a huge talent for painting. Together, Colville and artist Tom Forestal pushed through the school of magical realism, creating a force in Atlantic Canadian art that would define the national scene for decades.
With degrees in art from both Mount Alison and the Glasgow School of the Arts, the Pratt family returned to Newfoundland and Christopher began his career seriously. His works were well received from the very beginning and, along with curation and teaching, he managed to dedicate himself to his art, which he made fruitful for the rest of his life.
Pratt has worked in many settings, such as the watercolor seen here in his 2004 painting, Some Shadows On My House. (Christopher Pratt / Private collection)
“I love what I’m doing. I don’t consider it a job. I’ve never done that. It’s a rich, satisfying hobby that I’m lucky enough to have a good life with so far, “Pratt said in a 2015 interview with his retrospective exhibition, The Places I Go, which focuses on a defining aspect of his life and work: traveling in Newfoundland.
The worships of Pratt
Pratt traveled the island often and much like “pilgrimage,” said Mireille Egan, who oversees The Places I Go as curator of contemporary art at The Rooms, a St. John’s cultural complex that includes the Provincial Art Gallery.
Egan made two such trips with Pratt, traveling thousands of miles around Newfoundland in search of his muse.
As befits such a disciplined artist, his travels were well arranged. Egan said he visited the same places every time: from his parents’ graves to the buildings he painted to his favorite highway stops.
“He told me stories along the way. And every river we passed, every tree that mattered to him, he would talk about, “Egan said.
“We were going to talk about the history of this province, which he knew closely … It was important for him to remember this place. And he did it through his paintings.
“If there is a big theme in his paintings, it’s works that are images that can be seen from the road,” Smart said.
Deer Lake: Junction Brook Memorial, a 1999 oil painting by Pratt at Deer Lake Powerhouse, is in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, a gift from David and Margaret Marshall. (Christopher Pratt / Godard Gallery)
Travels include stops such as Deer Lake’s Powerhouse, a majestic building of luminous millions that has been the subject of one of his most famous works, Deer Lake: Junction Brook Memorial.
“It’s just such an unusual picture,” Smart said.
“You wonder why he turned his attention to this power plant and spent so much time painting it, but it gives me great, great satisfaction to watch it and travel in this landscape. To get lost in it, to be afraid of him too. “
The title of the picture hints at memories of the wild waterway, long domesticated for human use – its electricity still powers the pulp and paper factory in nearby Corner Brook – with this subtle nod, one of many times Pratt used his art to to testify to the history of his beloved province.
According to this major advantage, “traveling with Christopher Pratt is pretty funny,” Egan said. They would listen to Frank Sinatra or jazz, and the human warmth behind so many winter pictures would shine.
“He was a very modest man. He may look a little cold, but he’s not. He was a modest and compassionate man, “she said.
Pratt was also a sophisticated man who sought honesty and deep thinking from friends and family, Smart said.
The lynx, a 1965 screen print by Pratt. (Christopher Pratt / Beaverbrook Art Gallery)
A “deeply personal” artist
His family dynamics were disgracefully complex. Mary Pratt, who initially set aside her artistic career to support her husband’s career and raise their four children – John, Anne, Barbara and Ned – will come to embrace her vast talent for painting everyday life in the sublime.
The couple divorced after decades of marriage, with Christopher remarried, but the artistic relationship and respect remained.
“Both Mary and Christopher told me that they see in each other perfection, artistic perfection and great creativity,” said Smart.
“Throughout their careers, they have worked closely together. “Especially at the end of their lives, they both reconciled and would have conversations that would influence each other’s artistic practice out of deep respect,” Egan said.
Trongate Abstract, a 2018 painting inspired by a devastating fire years earlier in Pratt’s alma mater, …
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