Summer Table, 1983

Summer Table is a luminous celebration of the pleasures of everyday life. Painted in Plaskett’s fifteenth-century home at 2 Rue Pecquay in Paris’s historic Marais district, the work transforms the remnants of a shared summer meal into a richly orchestrated still life. A casually arranged table is scattered with wine glasses, fruit, crockery, flowers and a half-empty bottle, while the open French doors dissolve the boundary between interior and the narrow street, and building beyond. Warm sunlight filters across the white tablecloth, catching the transparent glassware and infusing the composition with shimmering colour and atmosphere. The loose, painterly handling and radiant palette recall the great French tradition of Bonnard and Matisse, yet the painting remains unmistakably Plaskett’s own - an affectionate evocation of hospitality, friendship and the quiet poetry found in the traces of everyday living. These intimate still lifes, inspired by memorable meals shared with friends, were what Plaskett playfully called his “tablescapes.”

Joseph Plaskett (1918–2014) was one of Canada’s most distinguished painters and among the country’s finest interpreters of still life. Awarded the first Emily Carr Scholarship in 1946 through the encouragement of Lawren Harris, he studied at the California School of Fine Arts, with Hans Hofmann in New York and Provincetown, and later with Fernand Léger in Paris. After serving as Director of the Winnipeg School of Art, he settled permanently in Paris in 1957, where the city’s artistic heritage inspired him to turn from abstraction toward the luminous figurative oil paintings and pastels for which he became celebrated. His home in the Marais became a gathering place for artists, writers and musicians from around the world, while his later years in Suffolk, England, produced another remarkable series of flower and still-life paintings.

Appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, Plaskett’s works are represented in major public collections across Canada, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. In 2004, he established the Joseph Plaskett Foundation, whose prestigious annual award continues to support young Canadian artists studying in Europe, extending the generosity that had transformed his own career.

For an outstanding article about Plaskett, read Brennan, Brian (31 August 2006). "Joe Plaskett". Galleries West Magazine. Retrieved 7 April 2021.

Additional biographical information is available online at The Joe Plaskett Foundation.

Joseph Plaskett had several solo exhibitions with our original family art gallery, Galerie Walter Klinkhoff in 1973, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1986, 1992, 1997, and 2001.