Gaspé Cabins, 1955
Oil on canvas
20 1/8 x 24 in
51 x 61 cm
51 x 61 cm
This painting is available to view at our Toronto gallery.
$20,000
Inscriptions
signed, ‘surrey’ (lower left)Provenance
Private collection, MontrealExhibitions
Montreal, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 35 Painters of Today, January 19- February 3, 1957.Literature
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 35 Painters of Today (Montreal : Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1957), unpaginated.Jacques de Roussan, Philip Surrey (Montreal: Collection Panorama, 1968), unpaginated [Reproduced and listed as property of the artist].
Not unusually, Surrey had been suffering from various and numerous anxieties. In the summer of 1954 a vacation from work to the peace offered by the Gaspé region was a welcome relief.
According to Margaret Surrey's "narrative" typed from information given to her by Philip , it was in 1954 that she & Philip rented a car and headed to the Gaspe. First they enjoyed an overnight stay in Port au Persil at a pension where Jean-Paul and Madeleine Lemieux were staying. The four had an evening of conversation after which Margaret and Philip took the ferry across the river. "La Gaspesie was still primitive, no hotels. We stopped at little wood cabins with a stove for heat and cooking. I made about 40 6 x 8s and later four canvases of which we have kept one. At Percé we rented a cabin right above the beach. Margaret cooked and I painted all day.” [1]
In a list Philip compiled in 1988 of 100 important works to include, or at least consider for a book about his career , he notes two paintings of 1955 Gaspé Cabins l & ll , one of which he still owned at that time.
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Footnotes:
[1] Margaret Surrey, Biographical notes of Philip Surrey, Philip and Margaret Day Fonds, p. 117, National Archives of Canada, Estate Philip Surrey.
According to Margaret Surrey's "narrative" typed from information given to her by Philip , it was in 1954 that she & Philip rented a car and headed to the Gaspe. First they enjoyed an overnight stay in Port au Persil at a pension where Jean-Paul and Madeleine Lemieux were staying. The four had an evening of conversation after which Margaret and Philip took the ferry across the river. "La Gaspesie was still primitive, no hotels. We stopped at little wood cabins with a stove for heat and cooking. I made about 40 6 x 8s and later four canvases of which we have kept one. At Percé we rented a cabin right above the beach. Margaret cooked and I painted all day.” [1]
In a list Philip compiled in 1988 of 100 important works to include, or at least consider for a book about his career , he notes two paintings of 1955 Gaspé Cabins l & ll , one of which he still owned at that time.
_________________________________
Footnotes:
[1] Margaret Surrey, Biographical notes of Philip Surrey, Philip and Margaret Day Fonds, p. 117, National Archives of Canada, Estate Philip Surrey.
