Lot 72
MARJORIE (JORI) ELIZABETH THURSTON SMITH
Additional Images
Provenance:
Private Collection, Ontario
Literature:
A.K. Prakash, Independent Spirit: Early Canadian Women Artists, Firefly Books, Richmond Hill, Ontario, 2008, pages 186 & 187, reproduced in colour.
Note:
A.K. Prakash describes Seated Nude as “an ambitious self-portrait painted with vigorous colour to stress important detail.” It has, he asserts, “the distortions of Cézanne, the wedge-like contours of African sculpture, and an imitation of cubism”. In her self-portrait, Jori Smith confronts the viewer with a self-confident gaze. A woman unbound and assertive, she declares her objection to the nude as sinful, through the resoluteness of her pose. As with the majority of her portraiture, the work lacks sentimentality and opts instead to capture the artist’s character. The impact is as forceful and spontaneous as Smith’s expressionist brushstrokes.