Wilf Perreault: In the Alley/dans la ruelle

Coteau Books, Sep 11, 2014 - Art - 240 pages

Wilf Perreault contains an additional treat – 11 pieces of creative prose and poetry by Saskatchewan literary artists responding to Wilf's work in general, or to specific paintings that have inspired them. Walking up the alley with Wilf Perreault, we see how his work fits perfectly into the tradition established by Saskatchewan artists from Ernest Lindner to Joe Fafard to David Thauberger. His paintings are rendered in a breathtaking detail that asks us to take another, closer, look at the everyday. Born in the small Franco-Saskatchewan community of Albertville, Wilf Perreault studied art at the University of Saskatchewan and has been painting and teaching art in Regina since the early 1970s.

Contents

• Up My Alley: 4
• Mon truc cest les ruelles: 52
• Wilf Perreaults Reflective Day 1985: 96
• Guiding Light 2002 as Sanctuary: 100
• Wilf Perreaults Night Light 1995: 104
• Belief Response to Fence Lines 1999: 108
• Alley A Way to Go Response to Candy Apple Red 1986: 112
• The Last Lit House after Evening Silence by Wilf Perreault: 116
• Black Windows Response to The Crescents 2001: 120
• Reggie The Grasshopper Takes a Hop: 124
• Returning Home: 130
• Wilf Perreault at Work: 147
• Wilf Perreault au travail: 167
• Chronology: 188
• Chronologie: 196
• Exhibitions Collections: 204
• Bibliography: 209
• Plate List: 211
• Photo Credits: 213
• About the Contributors: 214
• Wilf Perreaults Thank You: 217
• Blue Evening Perreault Style Response to NorthEast Lights 2003: 222

About the author

Timothy Long has been Head Curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery since 2001. His landmark exhibitions of Saskatchewan artists include: David Thauberger: Road Trips & Other Diversions (2013); Tactile Desires: The Work of Jack Sures (2011); and Joe Fafard (2007). His recent publications include: After Presence: Problems of Presence in Contemporary Art (MacKenzie Art Gallery, 2013) and The Vaults: Art from the MacKenzie Art Gallery and University of Regina Collections (with Stephen King, University of Regina Press, 2013).

Wilf Perreault has been described as one of the most interesting of Canada’s contemporary landscape painters. Born in ALBERTVILLE, he took private art lessons as a child. His formal training began at the UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN, where his concern for representational painting was at odds with the New York-style abstraction dominant at that time in Saskatchewan. He concentrated instead on abstract sculpture under the guidance of OTTO ROGERS and BILL EPP. He also encountered the landscape paintings of RETA COWLEY and DOROTHY KNOWLES, whose expressive play with light in the landscape would later serve as an influence. Perreault graduated with a BFA in 1970 and a BEd in 1971, and moved to Regina to teach art. There he returned to painting, and his explorations of his new city became linked with his search for a subject matter. Perreault eschewed the conventional views, becoming fascinated instead with the complex vistas to be found in the back lanes of the inner city. These hidden landscapes have sustained his interest throughout his career, providing an ongoing challenge to his skills in creating works that capture the play of light and reflection, evoking a human context that saturates his work with a sense of place. He developed an exacting method to capture the reflections in his often water- or snow-covered alleys. In layer after layer of thin washes, colour is used in precise brushstrokes to achieve paintings that are masterful renderings of texture and compositional elements and, above all, of light.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Wilf Perreault: In the Alley/dans la ruelle
• Contributor: Timothy Long
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Coteau Books, 2014
• ISBN: 1550505963, 9781550505962
• Length: 240 pages
• Subjects: Art / Canadian; Art / Individual Artists / Essays