Lot 49: Anthony Morse (Tony) Urquhart 1934 - Canadian oil

Anthony Morse (Tony) Urquhart 1934 - Canadian oil on canvas The Earth Returns to Life "32 x 40 inches 81.3 x 101.6 centimeters signed and dated 1958 and on verso signed, titled and inscribed """"1923 Main St., Niagara Falls, Ont."""" and """"49:59"""" on the stretcher Provenance:James Goodman Gallery Inc., New York Mr. Schoellkopf, Niagara Falls Private Collection, Georgia Tony Urquhart was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario in 1934. He studied at the Albright Art School at the State University of New York and taught at the University of Waterloo from 1972 until his retirement in 1999. Urquhart gained recognition early in his career with abstract works exhibited at The Isaacs Gallery in Toronto. His paintings, self-described as landscapes, are ambiguous representations of the natural world and are often fictitious or vaguely based on memory. Urquhart is known to have an interest in man's effect on the landscape, and in The Earth Returns to Life, painted directly on bare canvas, he fuses elements rom both untouched nature and man's cultivation of nature by including both hovering tree forms and disappearing fence lines. As well as being a successful painter, Urquhart is also a sculptor and an illustrator, and his works have been featured on the covers of books by his wife Jane Urquhart, as well as by Michael Ondaatje and Rohinton Mistry. "