Art and Rivalry: The Marriage of Mary and Christopher Pratt

by Carol Bishop-Gwyn

Overview

The unauthorized biography of Canada's most famous artist couple and the rivalry that drove them.

She painted as if with pure light, radiant colours making quotidian kitchen scenes come alive with sublimated drama. He painted like clockwork, each stroke precise and measured with exquisite care, leaving no angle unchecked and no subtlety of tone unattended. Some would say Mary Pratt was fire and Christopher, ice. And yet Newfoundland's Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (or Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner...) presented their marriage as a portrait of harmony and balance. But balance off the canvas rarely makes great art, and the Pratts' art was spectacular.
As a youth at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Mary pursued her future husband, a prodigious art talent, and supported his determination to study painting instead of medicine. They married and removed themselves to a Newfoundland outport where his painting alone provided the means to raise a family. But as Mary's own talents became evident and she sought her own hours at the easel, when not raising their four children, and as rumours of Christopher's affair with a young model spread, the Pratts' harmonious exterior slowly cracked, to scandal in Newfoundland and fascination across the country. A marriage ended, and gave way to a furious competition for dominance in Canadian art.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345808424
Publisher:	Knopf Canada
Publication date:	10/08/2019
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

CAROL BISHOP-GWYN is a former arts producer at CBC Radio and journalist, published in The Beaver, Toronto Life, Chatelaine, Maclean's and The Globe and Mail. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from York University and Master of Philosophy from the University of Surrey. Summering in Newfoundland for over a decade, she developed a deep knowledge of the province's visual arts scene, along with an excellent general knowledge of Canadian visual arts. She is a board member of the Winterset in the Summer Literary Festival, and as program chair has invited writers, musicians and visual artists to participate. Her first biography, The Pursuit of Perfection: A Life of Celia Franca, was a finalist for the 2012 Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction and named a Globe 100 best book of the year.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

1 Plump Fredericton Fruit and Newfoundland Mud Trout 1

2 I Is a Newfoundlander 25

3 Glasgow and Mount Allison 41

4 Townie and Bayman 54

5 Life in a Bubble 64

6 You Can't Pretend Beach Rocks Are Potatoes 73

7 Who Didn't Eat Their Hotdog? 82

8 Familiarity Breeds Consent 98

9 This Is Donna 107

10 The House That Jack Built 122

11 Poor Me 128

12 You Look like a Grand Bank 140

13 This Is Jeanette 146

14 Ménage à Trois 151

15 The Pratt Brand 159

16 Life Is Not a Rehearsal 167

17 Banished 178

18 Father Christmas 189

19 Driving to Venus 196

20 When the Eider Ducks Fly 205

Epilogue 223

Acknowledgements 227

Bibliography 229

Notes 234

Index 249

Editorial Reviews

A fascinating view into how dueling ambitions and marital betrayal helped inspire some of the pair’s most iconic paintings.” —Sue Carter, Toronto Star

“As profound a portrait as I have read about the complexity of marriage between artists and the compromises a great female artist is willing to make. But when Mary Pratt painted portraits of her husband’s mistress and did it more powerfully than he, you have to question who was the more willful. Bishop-Gwyn’s writing is intense and elegant and makes Art and Rivalry a page turner.” —Rosemary Sullivan, author of Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
 
“Carol Bishop-Gwyn offers a remarkable double portrait of Canada’s first couple of painting. She explores the lives of Mary and Christopher Pratt with the insight and sympathy of a friend and insider, and the wide lens and forensic scrutiny of an historian. Along the way we learn of the passions, tragedies and rivalries behind two extraordinary bodies of work.” —Ross King, author of Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies
 
“Carol Bishop-Gwyn has written a book unlike any other on two of Canada’s most important painters, Mary Pratt and Christopher Pratt. An insightful biography of remarkable but rival artists, it explores the complicated and troubled marriage that fuelled the renowned careers that defined the country’s cultural landscape in distinct ways. Beautifully written and researched, Art and Rivalry takes readers into the Pratt’s volatile Newfoundland home and deftly examines what drove Mary’s domestic scenes of emotion and turmoil and Christopher’s depictions of control and order. Deeply compelling, provocative and enlightening, this is a must-read for anyone interested in Canadian art and the complicated underpinnings of creativity.” —Sara Angel, PhD, Founder and Executive Director, The Art Canada Institute

From the Publisher