Artwork by Robert Wakeham Pilot,  Hart House

Robert Pilot
Hart House

oil on canvas
signed lower left
20 x 24 ins ( 50.8 x 61 cms )

Auction Estimate: $50,000.00$30,000.00 - $50,000.00

Price Realized $27,600.00
Sale date: May 29th 2014

Provenance:
Continental Galleries of Fine Art, Montreal.
Private Collection, Toronto.
Highlighting the important history of Toronto's Hart House, Christine Boyanoski, curator of the current travelling exhibition “A Story of Canadian Art: As told by the Hart House Collection” notes:

“Hart House was commissioned by the Massey family, and gifted to the University of Toronto in 1919 as a cultural centre where students, faculty, and the broader public could mingle and converse. The Hart House Art Committee, comprised of students, artists, faculty, and staff at the University of Toronto, began collecting art with the purchase of A.Y. Jackson's ‘Georgian Bay’ in 1922, and continued to focus on the work of the Group of Seven and their contemporaries, as well as the Beaver Hall Group and Canadian Group of Painters, through the first half of the twentieth century.”

Given the importance of Hart House within the Canadian art (and Toronto's) identity, it is not surprising that Robert Pilot chose the landmark for a rare Toronto landscape. Reminiscent of Pilot's signature winter scenes depicting Quebec City and Montreal, “Hart House” is a celebration of mood and light, the spires of Soldier's Tower overlooking the clouded winter day. The bundled figures move briskly through the foreground, anticipating the warmth which pours from the glowing windows of their destination.

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Robert Wakeham Pilot
(1898 - 1967) PRCA

Born in St. John's, Newfoundland, Robert Pilot moved to Montreal in 1910 when his widowed mother married well-known Canadian artist Maurice Cullen. Pilot found he was attracted to the artistic life as he helped his stepfather with chores in the studio and began sketching. He studied figure drawing at the Royal Canadian Academy and learned landscape painting with Cullen. As a student at the Art Association of Montreal, he was recognized as a gifted pupil by instructor William Brymner, who offered instruction to the penniless young artist free of charge on the condition that he would pay the fees when he was able.

After serving overseas in WWI he returned to Montreal and was invited to participate in the first Group of Seven exhibition in 1920. For a time he concentrated on the etching medium, with the desire to develop his own style apart from that of his stepfather. He was given the opportunity to study in Paris with the help of a generous patron and travelled to Paris in 1920. There he studied at the Academie Julian and exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1922. On his return to Canada he was elected an associate of the Royal Canadian Academy. Exhibiting with the RCA gave him more visibility and some of his works were acquired by the National Gallery of Canada. After several successful exhibitions he travelled abroad painting in France, Spain, and North Africa. In addition to oil paintings and etchings he worked in pastel and completed several mural commissions in public buildings. More successful shows followed and he continued to paint, although he served his country once again in WW2. His Canadian impressionist painting style was shaped by his years in France, the influence of his stepfather, Maurice Cullen, and the work of J. W. Morrice, whom he greatly admired. He was elected president of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1952. Pilot died in 1967 and was honored with a retrospective exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1969.