Lot 172: CHARLES PACHTER, TOUR DE FORCE, acrylic on canvas, 30 ins x 24 ins; 75 cms x 60 cms

CHARLES PACHTER, TOUR DE FORCE, acrylic on canvas; signed and dated /08. 30 ins x 24 ins; 75 cms x 60 cms. Provenance: Private Collection, Toronto.Literature: Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, Charles Pachter, Toronto, 1992, colour plates 48, 51, 53, 55, 59, 60-66 and 131 for works featuring imagery of the Moose.Pachter, Charles, M Is For Moose: A Charles Pachter Alphabet, Toronto, 2008, n.p., reproduced in colour (representing "Q is for Queen, trooping the colour.")Note: At the 1947 Canadian National Exhibition, a young Charles Pachter came face to face with a powerful but peaceful animal that would have a lasting effect on the artist's life and work. For close to forty years, the moose has been a signature subject for Pachter, the "Monarch of the North" having become a true icon of Canadian Pop Art. Pachter, in "M Is For Moose," describes some of the experiences which led him to develop his unique and powerful depictions of his Canada, remembering "when I was a fine arts student in university, it was often suggested to me by patronizing professors that the Canada of my imagination was not as important as the iconography from other places. If it came from elsewhere, it was consequential. If it came from here, not. So I began to draw, paint, and make prints in which I wanted to make Canada look cool, elegant, interesting, even "glamorous," and put it on a level playing field with all those other countries I was told were more worthy of notice. My experience was similar to that of many other visual artists, composers, and writers. Each of us has created a Canada that is unique, based on our accumulated life experiences, where we happen to live, who our friends are." While Pachter's earlier paintings of the moose usually depicted the animal along with the Queen, he eventually came to focus on it as a solitary icon. The dancing silhouette of the moose made its first appearance in 1975's Look Out Barbara Ann. However it was Tour De Force I, 1987 which first depicted the agile creature in an urban setting, atop the second level of a concrete diving platform. Tour De Force II followed in 1988, depicting the moose carefully but confidently walking a tightrope above Toronto's CN Tower. With Tour De Force I and II, Welsh-Ovcharov called the two paintings Pachter's "zenith with moose imagery", noting that both works "confirm the undaunted determination of the monarch of the north to establish its domain within urban Canada by a display of sure-footed acrobatic ability, leaving its subjects awestruck". We extend our thanks to Charles Pachter for providing important information in the cataloguing of this work.