Barker Fairley
(1887 - 1986) RCA
Previously Sold Works
BARKER FAIRLEY
Hilltop Tree
oil on board
signed lower left; signed, titled and dated 1978 on the reverse
16 x 20 ins ( 40.6 x 50.8 cms )
Auction Estimate: $4,000.00 - $6,000.00
Price Realized $7,475.00
Sale date: June 1st 2016
BARKER FAIRLEY
Olive Turner
oil on board
signed, titled and dated 1974 on the reverse
20 x 16 ins ( 50.8 x 40.6 cms )
Auction Estimate: $3,000.00 - $4,000.00
Price Realized $3,540.00
Sale date: November 19th 2019
BARKER FAIRLEY
Bitter Sweet (2)
oil on board
signed lower right; signed, titled and dated 1979 on the reverse
20.25 x 16 ins ( 51.4 x 40.6 cms )
Auction Estimate: $2,000.00 - $3,000.00
Price Realized $3,220.00
Sale date: November 22nd 2016
BARKER FAIRLEY
Barker Fairley (Paul Duval)
book
“Barker Fairley” (Paul Duval, Marianne Friedland Gallery Limited, 1980) signed by Barker Fairley and author on title page, includes 2 unframed lithographs- each signed and numbered 8/300 (11.5 ins x 11 ins (sheet)) enclosed in front pages; in original case
13 x 12.25 x 1.25 ins ( 33 x 31.1 x 3.2 cms )
BARKER FAIRLEY
Shoreline Landscape
photolithograph
signed, dated 1972 and numbered 52/150 in the lower margin
9.5 x 13 ins ( 24.1 x 33 cms ) ( subject )
BARKER FAIRLEY
Barker Fairley (Paul Duval)
book
“Barker Fairley” (Paul Duval, Marianne Friedland Gallery Limited, 1980) signed by Barker Fairley and author on inside page, includes 2 unframed lithographs- each signed and numbered 48/300 (11.5 ins x 11 ins (sheet)) enclosed in front pages; in original case
13 x 12.25 x 1.25 ins ( 33 x 31.1 x 3.2 cms )
BARKER FAIRLEY
Shoreline Landscape
lithograph, laid down on board
signed, dated 1972 and numbered 136/150 in the lower margin; unframed
21.5 x 24.5 ins ( 54.6 x 62.2 cms ) ( sheet )
BARKER FAIRLEY
Trees and Line of a Fence Post; House and Barn
two lithographs
each signed and numbered 15/60; each unframed (matted)
11.75 x 14.5 ins ( 29.8 x 36.8 cms ) ( each )
BARKER FAIRLEY
Barn and Tree, P.E.C.
oil on board
signed lower right; signed, titled and dated 1974 on the reverse
11.5 x 14 ins ( 29.2 x 35.6 cms )
BARKER FAIRLEY
Portrait of a Lady
colour lithograph and book
signed and numbered 4/150 in pencil in the lower margin; unframed;
sold together with “Barker Fairley: Portraits” (Gary Michael Dault, Methuen Publications, Agincourt, Ontario, 1981); signed by the artist and numbered 4/150 on the inside front page; housed in original box
30 x 22.25 ins ( 76.2 x 56.5 cms )
BARKER FAIRLEY
Portrait of a Lady
colour lithograph with book
signed and numbered 59/150 in pencil in the lower margin; unframed;
sold together with “Barker Fairley: Portraits” (Gary Michael Dault, Methuen Publications, Agincourt, Ontario, 1981); signed by the artist and numbered 59/150 on the inside front page; accompanied by a booklet by G.M. Dault detailing the project; housed in original linen box
30 x 22.5 ins ( 76.2 x 57.2 cms )
Auction Estimate: $500.00 - $700.00
Price Realized $480.00
Sale date: May 31st 2022
BARKER FAIRLEY
Portrait of Jack Yashinsky
oil on board
signed, titled and dated “May 10, 1973” on the reverse
sold together with the publication:
“Barker Fairley: Portraits” (Gary Michael Dault, Methuen Publications, Agincourt, Ontario, 1981)
15.75 x 12 ins ( 40 x 30.5 cms )
BARKER FAIRLEY
Pool, Algonquin Park
oil on board
signed upper right; titled and dated 1963 on the reverse
11.5 x 14 ins ( 29.2 x 35.6 cms )
Barker Fairley Biography
(1887 - 1986) RCA
Born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, son of an elementary schoolmaster. He won a country scholarship to Leeds University, where he read Modern Languages. He graduated with First Class Honors in French and German. He took a further three years of study in Jena, Germany. He came to Canada and taught German literature at the U. of Alberta. In 1914, he married Margaret Keeling (they had five children). In 1915, he accepted the post of professor of German at the U. of Toronto. In the years that followed, his mastery of German was to earn him an international reputation as a scholar, and acknowledged authority of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany’s most famous poet, dramatist, novelist, and leading figure in the Romantic movement. He became a member of the Arts & Letters Club of Toronto and a good friend of J.E.H Macdonald. At the Club, he met the members of the Group of Seven. He became a collector of art and acquired fourteen paintings by the Group. He travelled with them on their painting expeditions and became a champion for their cause and their work. In 1920, he founded The Canadian Forum. With his wife Margaret, he used the publication to defend the Group’s work which was under fierce attack by the critics of the day. The Forum provided extensive commentary on varied cultural issues.
It wasn’t until Fairley was 45 that he began to paint. His friend Robert Finch, poet and painter, and colleague in the U. of T. French Department, invited him to go sketching one morning in 1932. Fairley reluctantly went along but soon realized how much he enjoyed painting. He became an enthusiastic painter, formulating his own personal approach to his subjects. He spent four years in the 1930’s as Head of the German Department at the U. of Manchester, where he also painted works in oils, which recorded the grim social conditions in the English industrial city. After Margaret’s death, and in the years that followed, his second wife, Nan Purdie provided him with the inspiration, encouragement and emotional security that allowed him to reach his full maturity as a painter.
Viewing his work in 1978, Gary Michael Dault noted, “Now he is a painter whose work is more lean, more spare, more deftly economical and frequently more inventive than anything the Group devised.” Dault then quoted Fairley as follows, “‘I can’t go any further in simplification than I have done with those new pictures.” Continuing, Dault noted, “There are, in fact, viewers who will find them empty and devoid of pictorial incident. But look again at their sensuous completeness. Look at the remarkable picture called ‘Black Trees’ where, against a light green sky, Fairley has daubed five or six twists of black oil paint that turn into wonderfully distant and stalwart trees…. In the painting called ‘Presqu’ile Point’, a mopped rectangle of wet, blue paint turns into a lively crystalline sky and below it, a horizontal wiping of another rectangle of wet blue paint softens into a still reach of water. They’re all like this. Painting after painting. Each of them a moment in the life of the natural world, centred on canvas and held there by the force of delight.” He would finish a picture in a day and took only one two-hour sitting for a portrait. He would search for an aspect of the subject rather than photographic likeness.
Fairley died at the age of 99, was predeceased by his first wife Margaret in 1967, and was survived by his second wife, Nan Fairley, two of his five children, thirteen grandchildren and twenty-one great-grandchildren.
Literature Source:
"A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume 1: A-F, 5th Edition, Revised and Expanded", compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1997
