McGilvary County, 1962

Painting by Jack Chambers depicting a table filled with white dishes, fruit, and an overwhelming amount of yellow flowers. The table gradually transitions into white hills sparsely populated with blue triangular trees. Above the trees float six heads and glowing orbs.

Jack Chambers, McGilvary County, 1962, oil and mixed media on wood, 132.9 x 120 cm, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

Painted in the year after Chambers returned to Canada from the village of Chinchón, Spain, this highly coloured and apparently celebratory painting records a vision of dead relatives’ faces floating above a fantasy landscape and an overladen table set for a holiday celebration. Chambers reveals his growing knowledge of recent international art while focusing, in part through photographs of relatives, on his own heritage and the local context. McGilvary County is a leap into a new creative environment.

Gallery

McGilvary County - Art Canada