Mary Frances Pratt, LL. D. D.Litt. (née West) (March 15, 1935 – August 14, 2018) was a Canadian painter known for photo-realist

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

paintings. Pratt never thought of her work as being focused on one subject matter: her early work is often of domestic scenes, while later work may have a darker undertone, with people as the central subject matter. She painted what appealed to her, being emotionally connected to her subject. Pratt often spoke of conveying the sensuality of light in her paintings, and of the "erotic charge" her chosen subjects possessed.

Career

Painting

Mary Pratt's work focused on her relationship with domestic life in rural Newfoundland and common household items: jars of jelly, apples, aluminum foil, brown paper bags. Using photographic projections while painting, Pratt's style was bold and flamboyant, rendering her subject vivid and realistic. Due to this transformation of the mundane into something aesthetic, "she may have had more influence on shaping the way we see things than any Canadian painter since the Group of Seven". Pratt arrived at her signature style in the late 1960s, after discovering that light was her central subject and deciding to incorporate photography into her artistic process. Her paintings ''The Bed'' (1968) and ''Supper Table'' (1969) are the earliest examples of her characteristic style. In 1978 Pratt's painting ''Girl in a Wicker Chair'', created that year, was published on the cover of '' Saturday Night'' magazine. This was the first of an extended series of paintings on Donna Meaney, who first served as a model for Pratt's artist husband,

Christopher Pratt John Christopher Pratt (December 9, 1935 – June 5, 2022) was a Canadian painter and printmaker. In the 1980s Pratt continued exploring new subject matter and media. She created a series of paintings on weddings, including a portrait of her daughter Barbara, entitled ''Barby in the Dress She Made Herself'' (1986). Another series consists of paintings and mixed-media drawings of fires, which function as a metaphor for sacrifice. Using pastels and coloured pencils in this series enabled Pratt to work on a larger scale than she had previously done in oils. In the early 1990s Pratt and her husband separated, which lent her paintings of that period a darker, angry tone. For example, ''Pomegranates in Glass on Glass'' (1993) depicts the fruit torn apart into pieces, exposing its blood-red seeds. In a 2013 ''Globe and Mail'' article, responding to critics of her work as too commercial, she said, "People will find out that in each one of the paintings there is something that ought to disturb them, something upsetting. That is why I painted them."

Exhibitions

Pratt's paintings have been exhibited in most major galleries in Canada, reproduced in magazines such as '' Saturday Night'', '' Chatelaine'', and ''

Canadian Art Canadian art refers to the visual (including painting, photography, and printmaking) as well as plastic arts (such as sculpture) originating from the geographical area of contemporary Canada. Art in Canada is marked by thousands of years of hab ...

''. Her work is found in many prominent public, corporate, and private collections, including those of the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the ...

The Rooms The Rooms is a cultural facility in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The facility opened in 2005 and houses the Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Provincial Muse ...

, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the

New Brunswick Museum The New Brunswick Museum, located in Saint John, New Brunswick, is Canada's oldest continuing museum. The New Brunswick Museum was incorporated as the "Provincial Museum" in 1929 and received its current name in 1930, but its history goes back muc ...

Beaverbrook Art Gallery The Beaverbrook Art Gallery is a public art gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. It is named after William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, who funded the building of the gallery and assembled the original collection. It opened i ...

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Franc ...

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Bev ...

, and

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. Pratt's first solo exhibition was held at the Memorial University Art Gallery in St. John's in 1967. The first showing of her art outside Atlantic Canada was part of an exhibition at the Picture Loan Gallery in 1971 in Toronto. In 1973, Erindale College (Toronto) gave her a show of her own. The big breakthrough for wider notice of Pratt's work came when the National Gallery of Canada included many of her paintings and drawing in an exhibition in 1975 titled ''Some Canadian Women Artists'' curated by Mayo Graham. Her work also coincided with the upsurge of the women's movement (

International Women's Year International Women's Year (IWY) was the name given to 1975 by the United Nations. Since that year March 8 has been celebrated as International Women's Day, and the United Nations Decade for Women, from 1976 to 1985, was also established. Hist ...

was in 1975 as well). Several colleges and universities began incorporating discussions of her works in their women's studies programs. Public galleries began to show Pratt's work, holding

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...

s, among them

Museum London Museum London is an art and history museum located in London, Ontario, Canada. It is located near the forks of the Thames River. It started its operations in 1940 with London Public Library and amalgamated with London Regional Art Gallery and Lon ...

(1981) and the

Robert McLaughlin Gallery The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a public art gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public art gallery in the Regional Municipality of Durham, of which Oshawa is a part. The gallery houses a significant collection of Canadian conte ...

, Oshawa (1983). In 1995, the touring exhibition ''The Art of Mary Pratt: The Substance of Light'' was organized by the

Fredericton, New Brunswick Fredericton (; ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The city is situated in the west-central portion of the province along the Saint John River, which flows west to east as it bisects the city. The river is the do ...

. The accompanying catalogue won numerous awards and was included in ''Great Canadian Books of the Century''. Other recent shows at commercial galleries include ''Inside Light'' at th
Equinox Gallery
in Vancouver, Canada (May/June 2011) and

' at the Mira Godard Gallery in Toronto, Canada (May/June 2012). The exhibition was curated by Tom Smart. The solo exhibition titled ''Mary Pratt'' toured throughout Canada from 2013 to January, 2015. It was organized by The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery and Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and curated by

Mireille Eagan Mireille Eagan (born 1982) is a Canadian arts writer and curator. Career Mireille Eagan was born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1982 and grew up in Whitehorse, Yukon, and in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She is a graduate of Mount Allison University ...

, Sarah Fillmore, and Caroline Stone. The accompanying catalogue was published by

Goose Lane Editions Goose Lane Editions is a Canadian book publishing company founded in 1954 in Fredericton, New Brunswick as Fiddlehead Poetry Books by Fred Cogswell and a group of students and faculty from the University of New Brunswick associated with ''The F ...

. The tour traveled to the

Art Gallery of Windsor Art Windsor-Essex (AWE) (formerly known as the Art Gallery of Windsor) is a not-for-profit art institute in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Established in 1943, the gallery has a mandate as a public art space to show significant works of art by local ...

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

, Ontario; the

McMichael Canadian Art Collection The McMichael Canadian Art Collection (MCAC) is an art museum in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located on a property in Kleinburg, an unincorporated village in Vaughan. The property includes the museum's main building, a sculpture garde ...

Kleinburg Kleinburg is an unincorporated village in the city of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. It is home to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, an art gallery with a focus on the Group of Seven, and the Kortright Centre for Conservation. In 2001, the villag ...

, Ontario; the

MacKenzie Art Gallery The MacKenzie Art Gallery (MAG; french: Musee d’art MacKenzie) is an art museum located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The museum occupies the multipurpose T. C. Douglas Building, situated at the edge of the Wascana Centre. The building holds e ...

in Regina, Saskatchewan; and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The solo exhibition ''Mary Pratt: This Little Painting'' was on display at the National Gallery of Canada, running from April 4, 2015 to January 4, 2016. It toured to the

Owens Art Gallery Mount Allison University (also Mount A or MtA) is a Canadian primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, founded in 1839. Like other liberal arts colleges in North America, Mount Allison does not parti ...

Mount Allison University Mount Allison University (also Mount A or MtA) is a Canadian primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, founded in 1839. Like other liberal arts colleges in North America, Mount Allison does not parti ...

from March 11 to May 22, 2016. The exhibition was co-organized by the National Gallery of Canada and The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery. It was curated by

Jonathan Shaughnessy Jonathan Shaughnessy is a Canadian curator in the field of contemporary art. In 2022, he was made Director, Curatorial Initiatives at the National Gallery of Canada. He is also an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Visual Arts at Universit ...

and

Advisory/Public Duty

Pratt served on the government Task Force for Education in Newfoundland in 1973, on the Fishery Industry Advisory Board from 1978 to 1979, and on the Board of Management of the Grace General Hospital in St. John's, Newfoundland. She also served on the Federal Cultural Policy Review Committee, which produced the Applebaum-Hébert Report in 1981. Pratt chaired a committee to advise on the creation of the School of Fine Arts at

Sir Wilfred Grenfell College Grenfell Campus, formerly Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, is a campus of the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). It is located in the city of Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The campus has approximately 1,300 students enroll ...

Corner Brook, Newfoundland Corner Brook ( 2021 population: 19,333 CA 29,762) is a city located on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Corner Brook is the fifth largest settlement in Newfoundland and Labrador. ...

in 1985. Pratt held numerous other positions, including a seat on the

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the fede ...

from 1987 to 1993, and on the Board of Regents of

from 1983 to 1991. In the 1980s, Pratt began giving addresses and published essays in periodicals such as ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' and Glass Gazette.

Personal life

Pratt was the daughter of Harvard-educated attorney William J. West, who served as the Minister of Justice of New Brunswick from 1952 to 1958 and Katherine E. MacMurray. From as young as the age of 2, Pratt was intrigued by the relationship of light meeting a subject and started taking paint lessons by the age of 10. She had a younger sister, Barbara West Cross. She was strongly influenced by her maternal grandmother, Edna McMurray, who was the co-founder of the first IODE chapter in New Brunswick and served as its activist president for over 20 years. Pratt attended

, studying Fine Arts under

Alex Colville David Alexander Colville, LL. D. (24 August 1920 – 16 July 2013) was a painter and printmaker who continues to achieve both popular and critical success. Early life and war artist Born in 1920 in Toronto, Ontario, Colville moved with his ...

Ted Pulford Edward Berwyn Pulford (14 December 1914 – 4 November 1994) was a Canadian painter and watercolourist. Ted Pulford was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on 14 December 1914 of Welsh emigrant parents and died 11 April 1994. Although he was interest ...

, and Lawren P. Harris. completing her degree in 1961. In her second year, she met the artist

Christopher Pratt John Christopher Pratt (December 9, 1935 – June 5, 2022) was a Canadian painter and printmaker. Immediately after, they moved to Scotland, where Christopher had been accepted to the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...

. In 1963, they moved to Salmonier at the head of St. Mary's Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador. In 1964 the Memorial University Art Gallery mounted an exhibition of her work. She and Christopher had five children: John, Anne, Barbara, Ned, and David, who died in infancy. They divorced in 2005. The following year she married American artis
Jim Rosen
they divorced in 2015.

Awards and honours

In 1996, Pratt was named Companion of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the ...

. In 1997, she was awarded the $50,000 Molson Prize for visual artists from the

Canada Council for the Arts The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal i ...

. In 2013, she was made a member of the

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880. History 1880 to 1890 The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Queen Victoria on 16 July 1880. The Governor General ...

. Pratt was also awarded nine honorary degrees from various universities throughout Canada, including from

Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the fou ...

(1985),

Memorial University Memorial University of Newfoundland, also known as Memorial University or MUN (), is a public university in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, based in St. John's, with satellite campuses in Corner Brook, elsewhere in Newfoundland and i ...

(1986), and St. Thomas University (2000). In 2006, Pratt was awarded the Long Haul Award presented at the EVA Awards ceremony, which recognizes her as an influential artist in Newfoundland visual culture. In 2007,

Canada Post Canada Post Corporation (french: Société canadienne des postes), trading as Canada Post (french: Postes Canada), is a Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada. Originally known as Royal Mail Canada (the opera ...

issued stamps in its "Art Canada" series in honour of Mary Pratt. The $0.52 (domestic rate) stamp featured her ''Jelly Shelf'' (1999). The souvenir sheet included the $0.52 stamp, as well as a $1.55 (international rate) stamp with her ''Iceberg in the North Atlantic'' (1991).

Quotes

"It can't just be a painting of something, it has to be a painting that is something. A painting has to acquire a life of its own."Melissa Lombard (2010). Destined to paint. ''Record,'' (95), 12.

"I am not inspired by a person, but rather my relationship with the visual world."

"When I get in front of the easel and begin to paint, I sometimes burst into tears because I am so happy to be here. I am so glad it is just me, the canvas, the paint, and this dear little brush."

"I have found life very emotional and difficult to stay even. And I think that perhaps that comes out in the paintings - certainly I would never paint anything that didn't strike me emotionally, something that didn't physically bother me."

"People will find out that in each one of the paintings there is something that ought to disturb them, something upsetting. That is why I painted them."

References

External links

Interview with Mary Pratt, National Gallery of Canada

Canadian Art Magazine - online slideshow of Mary Pratt images

Pratt's work at the National Gallery of Canada

* ttp://www.godardgallery.com/maryprat.htm Mary Pratt at Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto
Mary Pratt on Trinity Galleries

* ttps://archive.org/details/AtlanticInsight-006-September-1979/page/n27 ''Mary Pratt, Artist'' - Cover story, Atlantic Insight Magazine - September 1979*
Art Canada Institute , Mary Pratt: Life & Work by Ray Cronin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pratt, Mary 1935 births 2018 deaths Companions of the Order of Canada People from Fredericton Mount Allison University alumni Canadian women painters Canadian contemporary painters Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Artists from New Brunswick 20th-century Canadian women artists 20th-century Canadian painters 21st-century Canadian painters 21st-century Canadian women artists