Lot 36: Charles Pachter 1942 - Canadian acrylic on canvas

Charles Pachter 1942 - Canadian acrylic on canvas Flag 36 x 24 inches 91.4 x 61 centimeters signed and dated 1998 and on verso signed and dated Provenance:Private Collection, Toronto Charles Pachter began The Painted Flag series in 1980, beginning with studies of his own Canadian flag mounted on an improvised pole on his southern Ontario farm. His first exhibition of large flag paintings took place in 1981 in a remarkable space - a former supermarket, transformed by the artist into what was probably the first art gallery to settle on Toronto's Queen Street West strip. Pachter has returned to this subject often since then, and his depictions of it have evolved into true portraits of a significant Canadian symbol. He has captured the myriad wind-borne movements of the cloth rectangle, sometimes allowing it to fly free of its anchoring pole, turning it in all directions and placing it on minimalist backdrops ranging from brilliant blue to sombre black. In this work, the viewer stands far below the flag, making it seem a delicate swatch of fabric struggling to free itself from the towering, foreshortened flagpole.