Artworks

Little commented to Don Newlands back in 1961, “I don’t mean to preserve everything, but there is so much in this city worth preserving. Take Sherbrooke Street, one of the few really graceful streets in Canada. It was once like a banquet table rich with food and rare wines. Now someone’s put a ketchup bottle on the table, a bank that’s all flat and blue.”*

This is one of the truly special views “in the day” along Montreal’s Golden Square Mile. In the foreground to the right we have a shot of the William Van Horne Mansion with architects McKim, Mead & White’s Mount Royal Club beyond, just across Stanley Street. On the south side of Sherbrooke Street, that is to the left stands the Lord Atholstan property, Beique House, the legendary Berkeley Hotel (with the two flags), Holland House ,the original Walter Klinkhoff Gallery and then entirely and conveniently obfuscated by the prominent tree is Little’s “bottle of ketchup”, an uninspired structure, one of the late 1950s and completely incongruous with the elegance of the street. Continuing west is the Ritz Carlton Hotel and Holt Renfrew.

It is only in a limited body of his work that John Little entertains the viewer with the effects of snow falling.



* “A Fond Last Look at Montreal” Macleans, May 06, 1961, p. 13