Provenance
Sale of Maynards Fine Art, Contemporary, Canadian, Northwest Coast and Inuit Art Auction, May 6, 2015, lot 39;
Equinox Gallery, Vancouver
Maxwell Bates views our existence as a hermetically sealed world of alienation and self-containement. It is a personalized and individual life we all lead; communications and human relationships can become totally exterior and distant from the inner core of our lives – the frightening realization of one’s self outside society. For Bates, art is a means of understanding the human condition, the human way of life.
– Art Parry on the work of Maxwell Bates, Vanguard, 1979
Bates was a master of observation, and his portraits are empathetic, and often somewhat humorous studies of human nature. The date of Young Woman is indistinct, but the work likely comes from Bates’ years in Victoria, where his work took focus on the cultural and social aspects of his surroundings. The solitary woman returns a confident and somewhat intimidating gaze back in the direction of the viewer in this work. Despite her simple pose, Bates conveys his subject with incredible character.
RCA, ASA, CGP, CSGA, CSPWC (1906-1980). Born in Calgary, Alberta, he was largely a self-taught painter, printmaker and architect and is considered, along with W.L. Stevenson, an innovator of Expressionism in Canada. He went to England in 1931 and after the war returned to Calgary where he was associated with…
RCA, ASA, CGP, CSGA, CSPWC (1906-1980). Born in Calgary, Alberta, he was largely a self-taught painter, printmaker and architect and is considered, along with W.L. Stevenson, an innovator of Expressionism in Canada. He went to England in 1931 and after the war returned to Calgary where he was associated with Jock MacDonald. He then went to New York and studied with Max Beckmann and Abraham Rattner at the Brooklyn Museum Art School (1949-50). Strongly influenced by such artists as Klee, Rouault, Kokoschka, and Picasso, his landscapes and figure studies also express his interest in the Japanese culture. Many of his street scenes, landscapes, still life and figure paintings are Romantic in nature. He retired to Victoria in 1962 and, while severely handicapped by ill-health towards the end of his life, nevertheless continued to paint right up to his death.
