Artworks

As we have written elsewhere and at certain length, John Little has spent a career literally since he left high school after grade 10, painting streets and neighborhoods that were being forever changed, sometimes demolished under the guise of urban renewal and suburbanization. Wolfe Street runs through what would pretty much have been le Faubourg à m’lasse, and on the northwest side of Rene Levesque, it continues to La Fontaine Park. It is not a long street, and today, for all intents and purposes, it is a completely different urban environment than Little’s street of 1979. As a casual observation, we didn't seem to notice a mature tree anywhere along the street.

Noteworthy is Little’s inscription on the verso left vertical stretcher; “James D. Jimmy McPartland - March 15, 1907 - Chicago, Illinois”; these are tributes or what we sometimes call “tombstones,” the artist writes. Since his time in New York City, Little has been a huge fan of jazz and sports (including wrestling, boxing, hockey, and baseball) has been a passion since his childhood. Discreetly on the back of his paintings, he puts just a tribute to a personality, sometimes a superstar, and even occasionally the roster of a Canadian Stanley Cup team. At other times, it's a very minor figure from one or another of those disciplines, and in his own way, he resurrects their recognition. This is very much in keeping with the recognition he celebrates on the front side.