“Sometimes I seem to be two people. One who does not paint and one who does. The one who does not paint assumes that the one who does can paint anything. The one who is the painter sometimes finds it difficult to live up to that faith.” – Mary Pratt
Mary Pratt was born on March 15, 1935 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She is a Canadian painter specializing in still-life realist paintings. She attended Mount Allison University, studying Fine Arts under Alex Colville, Lawren Harris and others. In her second year, she met the artist Christopher Pratt and they married in 1957.
The focus of her work is the ordinary household things one finds around the house: jars of jelly, apples, aluminum foil, brown paper bags. The style is bold and flamboyant, rendering the subject vivid and realistic.
Mary Pratt’s paintings have been exhibited in most major galleries in Canada, reproduced in magazines such as Saturday Night, Chatelaine, and Canadian Art. Her work is found in many prominent public, corporate, and private collections, including those of the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the New Brunswick Museum, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, and Canada House in England.
She lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland where she continues to paint and write.
Students worked with pencils to sketch out their composition. Chalk pastels and acrylic paint filled their paper with colour and energy.