Preserving Summer - Black Currant Jam

Provenance:
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto

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Private Collection, Colorado

Literature:
Kerry Clare, “Mary Pratt: On Blogging, and Preserving Light and Time,” Pickle Me This [Blog], August 25, 2013, http://picklemethis.com/2013/08/25/mary-pratt, accessed June 13, 2018
Notes:
Mary Pratt is one of Canada’s most renowned realist painters, and Preserving Summer - Black Currant Jam is a fine example of an important part of her oeuvre – still lifes that incorporate domestic rituals around the production, display and consumption of enticing foods. Pratt produced jams and jellies as part of her family life in Newfoundland; she commented that she found jellies as beautiful as the stained glass windows in churches. Here Pratt takes us into her private, intimate world: the aftermath of the jam’s tasting, showing the remainder pooling in the bowl and staining the spoon and spatula, connoting the sensual enjoyment of its delicious flavour. Through the use of photographs, she examines her subject closely, capturing a moment in time. She called the camera “my instrument of liberation” – it allowed her to “concentrate on the light, and the content and the symbolism” of her subjects. Pratt’s handling of light is exquisite here. It washes across the bowl, reflects from the handle of the silver spoon, and casts both shadow and pools of light across the table below, intensifying the sensuality of her subject.