Provenance:

Maria Tachesi, Vancouver
Mrs. Milus Douglas Roberts, Vancouver
Private Collection

Literature:

Jack Shadbolt, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1969, page 29, cat. no. 3, reproduced.
Ian Thom, Jack Shadbolt: Early Watercolours, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, B.C., 1980, introduction.
Scott Watson, Shadbolt, Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver/Toronto, 1990, page 36, and page 31, reproduced in colour.

Note:

Watson quotes Shadbolt reflecting on his work of this period: “I find myself full of satisfaction as an artist in the streets about me: in the strange facade of a modern city block built up of all the historic hangovers of old architectural styles.” Watson continues: “The street scenes of downtown Vancouver showed (Shadbolt’s) fascination with telephone poles, neon signs, scaffolds, guy wires, chimneys - objects he called the “appendages of the modern street.” But his interest was no longer, he pointed out, in architectural incident for its own sake, but as “a complete reflection of society.” While the subjects are similar to the ones he worked on before joining the army, the treatment is different. The watercolour medium is used in a more fluid manner, which enhances the feeling of damp and inclement weather and heightens the reflection of neon light in pavement pools, an image that seemed of particular interest to him.”

Granville Street at Night is an exceptional example of Shadbolt’s Vancouver street scenes.

In the introduction to the catalogue for his watercolour exhibition of Shadbolt’s works, curator Ian Thom refers to this lot as a “documentary work of the highest order”.