Lot 217: [ CANADIAN ART ] GEORGE agnew REID (1860-1947) THE BERRY PICKERS signed and dated '87' oil on canvas 48.3 by 84.5 cm. 19 by 33.25in. Reid was a prize winning artist and teacher and later the principal at the Ontario College of Art. His artistic

[ CANADIAN ART ] GEORGE agnew REID (1860-1947) THE BERRY PICKERS signed and dated '87' oil on canvas 48.3 by 84.5 cm. 19 by 33.25in. Reid was a prize winning artist and teacher and later the principal at the Ontario College of Art. His artistic training was strongly rooted in the French academic tradition and later reinforced and strengthened in Philadelphia, by study with the American realist, Thomas Eakins. As a genre painter, Reid was one of the most significant of all the Toronto realists. In The Berry Pickers, Reid has been inspired by an activity he would have seen many times on or near his farm home near Wingham, Ontario. He has painted the main figures silhouetted against the sky in brilliant sunshine, their heads shaded by sun hats. The colour of their clothing is repeated in that of the other workers in the painting. The illusion of depth is masterfully handled and runs back through the road bisecting the summer green fields, to a distant horizon where it unites with the blue-green sky. Another painting by Reid with the same title and with similar subject matter is in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. PROVENANCE: Wallack Galleries, Ottawa Private Collection, Toronto LITERATURE: Christine Boyanoski, Sympathetic Realism, George A. Reid and the Academic Tradition, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1986, another version of The Berry Pickers on the cover, illustrated in colour