Christopher Pratt, legendary Canadian painter, dead at 86

Christopher Pratt, who cast a mysterious and magical aura over the Newfoundland and Labrador landscape with artwork that achieved international acclaim, has died. He was 86.

He died early Sunday morning, his family said in a statement.

"He died as he wished, surrounded by family and friends in his home of 59 years on the Salmonier River," the family's statement said.

He is survived by four children and other family. Acclaimed painter Mary Pratt, described in the family statement as his "best friend and sometime wife," died in 2018.

"It's a big loss, to so many. Canada has lost a greatartist," said Emma Butler, a friendand the founder ofEmma Butler Gallery in St. John's.

Pratt was often called one of Canada's greatest painters over the course of his extensive and successful career, which earned him appointment toboth theOrder of Canada and the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador. Hiswork is heldin galleries from coast to coast to coast, including theNational Gallery of Canada.

His decades of paintings and prints centreon Newfoundland landscapes and experiences: the gaze out to sea, snow settled on an upturned dory, barren stretches of the Trans-Canada Highway.In his signaturemeticulous style, Pratt transportsviewers with his ofteneerily lit vistas to territory that exists somewhere between thelifelike and the surreal.

"There's magic in his paintings," said Tom Smart, the director of the Beaverbrook Gallery in Fredericton and author of ChristopherPratt: Six Decades.

"He's called a magic realist for a reason. You look at his paintings and it's almost as if they're looking back at you."

That unsettling gaze marked much of Pratt's art.

"His paintings have a lot of depth,"said Smart. "You can appreciate the picture;he's painting a building or a landscape that's familiar to everybody, But then when you start to look at it, you say, 'Well, wait a minute there'ssome things that are going on here.'"

Pratt made no secret that his workseditedout the clutter of the world. He'dremovestains and straightenlinesto create complex, alternate versions of reality.

"The straight lines and precision and all thatthe control in my workis just a facade," Pratt told CBCRadio's On The Go in 2018.

"Because my life and my thoughts and my anxieties and whatnotare anything but neat and controlled and orderly."

From Confederationto the flag design

Pratt's works give feweasy answers.Instead, they rewardthose willing to spend time with them, and what they say about his deep affection for Newfoundland and Labrador.

"He loved this place. He loved this wild, unpredictable, beautiful place," said Butler.

"And he travelled it, and he painted it with love and reverence. And if you couldn't see the love andreverence in his paintings, then you were just missing out on what he was saying."

That love led to an unusual honour, considering his lineage:Pratt was born in 1935, in the governmental grey era after Newfoundland surrendered its self-governing status to the United Kingdom and effectively operated as a British territory until Confederationwith Canada in 1949.

Both sides of Pratt's family stretched back generations in Newfoundland, and many of them werestaunchly opposed to joining Canada. Pratt became a Canadian at 13, and often said he had vivid memories and associations to the pre-Confederation era.

Thenin 1980, with his art career in full swing, Pratt was picked to design the provincial flag (until then, the Union Jack had been doing the job).

Pratt put his noted work ethic to use, creating dozens of flag designs before settling on the one still flying today, which contains subtle nods to the British, maritime and Beothuk histories of the place.

The flag was divisive upon its arrival, and Pratt was at timesambivalent about it himself he once described himself as a reluctant "show doctor" who agreed under pressure to help break an impasse among politicians on a design but was clear on one point.

"Idid the best Icould possibly do," he told CBC in 1980.

"Ithink that the committee might well have found a better designer, I don't dispute that.But I would say with all modesty, that they would not have found anybody who cared more about the province."

'I love what I do'

Pratt spent almost all his life based onNewfoundland's east coast, butleft the province early onfor higher education, picking outa pre-medicinedegree at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B.

Medicine didn't last.Pratt was drawn to the school's fine arts department and fell under the spell of his early mentor and teacher, Alex Colville, whose style influenced Pratt's own.

Mount Allison also introduced Pratt to his future first wife, Mary, an immense painting talent in her own right.Together they, Colvilleand painter Tom Forrestall pushed forward theschool of magic realism painting, creating a force in Atlantic Canadian art that would define the national scene for decades.

With arts degrees from both Mount Allison and the Glasgow School of Art in hand, the Pratts returned to Newfoundland and Christopher began his career in earnest.His works were well received from early on, and alongside curating and teaching, he was able to devote himself to his art, which he did, prolifically, for the rest of his life.

"Ilove what Ido. Idon't consider it to be work. I never have. It's a rich, satisfying hobby at which Iam fortunate to make actually a good living so far, " Pratt said in a2015interview about his retrospective exhibit, The Places I Go, which focused on a defining aspect of his lifeand work: Newfoundland road trips.

Pratt's pilgrimages

Pratt travelled the islandoftenand extensively, akin to "a pilgrimage," said Mireille Eagan, who curated The Places I Go in her role as curator of contemporary art at The Rooms, the St. John's cultural complex that includes the provincial art gallery.

Eagan took two such trips with Pratt, racking up thousands of kilometres across Newfoundland as he sought his muse.

As befits such a disciplinedartist, his road tripswere well ordered. Eagan said he visitedthe same places each time: from his parents' gravesto buildings he had painted to favourite highway rest stops.

"He would tell me stories along the way. And every river that we passed, every tree that had held meaning to him, he would talk about," said Eagan.

"We would talk about the history of this province, which he knew intimately. It was important for him to remember this place. And he did so through his paintings."

"If there's a large kind of theme to his paintings, it's works that are images that are seen from the road," said Smart.

Trips included stops such as the Deer Lake Powerhouse, a stately building of glowing mullions that became the subject of one of his most well-known works,Deer Lake: Junction Brook Memorial.

"It's just such an extraordinary painting," said Smart.

"You wonder why he turned his attention to this power station, and put so much time into painting it but it gives me enormous, enormous satisfaction to look at it and to travel into that landscape.To be lost in it, to be afraid of it, too."

The painting's title hints at memories of the wild waterway, long since tamed for human use its electricity still supplies the pulp and paper mill in nearby Corner Brook with thatunderstated acknowledgement one of the many times Pratt used his art to testify to the history of his beloved province.

Belying thatserious edge, "a road trip with Christopher Pratt is pretty funny," Eagan said. They'd listen to Frank Sinatra or jazz,and the human warmth behind so many wintry paintings would shine through.

"He was a very humble man. He can come across as a bit cold, but he's not. He was a humble and compassionate person," she said.

Pratt was also a complex man who soughthonesty and deep thinking from friends and family, said Smart.

A 'deeply personal' painter

His family dynamic was infamously complex.Mary Pratt, who initially set aside her art career to support her husband's and raise their four children John, Anne, Barbara and Nedwould come to embrace her immense talent for painting the quotidian into the sublime.

The two divorced after decades of marriage, withChristopher remarrying,but an artistic connection and respect remained.

"Both Mary and Christopher told me that they saw in in each other excellence, artistic excellenceand tremendous creativity," said Smart.

"Throughout their careers, they worked closely together.Particularly near the end of both of their lives, they reconciled and would have conversations that would influence each other's art practice out of deep respect," said Eagan.

Mary Pratt died in 2018 at 83. That same year, Christopher Pratt painted Trongate Abstract,inspired by a devastating fire at the Glasgow School of Art, his alma mater.

The seemingly cool composition hints at emotion but only if you flip it overto thededication on its back: "To Mary."

"His paintings are deeply personal and deeply felt," said Eagan.

"I know that many, many will look at his work and they'll say, 'Oh, it's so cold,' but in fact, it isn't. This is a way of remembering. And so when we look at his paintings, we're looking at him."

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