Escape, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
36 x 42 in
91.4 x 106.7 cm
91.4 x 106.7 cm
This painting is presently on view at our Montreal gallery
$15,000
Inscriptions
signed and dated, ‘CLAUDE A. SIMARD / 08’ (lower right); titled, dated and signed, ‘ESCAPE / 2008 / CLAUDE A. SIMARD’ (verso, centre right); stamped in black ink with artist’s studio stamp and dated, ‘2008’ (verso, on canvas fold)Provenance
Acquired from the Artist,
Galerie Walter Klinkhoff Inc., Montreal, June 2008
Acquired the above, Private collection, Westmount, Quebec
Escape reads as a short autobiographical chapter.
Inside, the table is alive with colour and intention: vases of tulips—yellows, oranges, reds—flare upward with a kind of urgency, their forms simplified yet emphatic, painted with the enthusiasm of a keen observer and admirer. The blues of the chairs and vessels anchor the composition, but also heighten the chromatic intensity of the flowers. The objects scattered across the table—brochures for Holland, the Keukenhof Gardens in Amsterdam, not incidental; they are the intellectual and emotional scaffolding of the scene. They suggest planning, longing, and projection.
Beyond the window, winter persists. Snow blankets the ground in a broad, simplified sweep, and small, colourfully bundled figures move along a path near unidentified buildings. The trees, bare and linear, reinforce a sense of dormancy and pause.
In the world of “Claude A” the title Escape becomes both literal and poetic. Simard is not merely depicting a still life—he is staging a mental departure. The tulips, brought indoors, are more than substitutes for a dormant garden; they are anticipatory, almost prophetic. They embody a future moment—the spring bloom in Holland, a “study trip”, an impending trip to the annual Amsterdam Tulip Festival, anticipated and already vividly imagined.
We discover a portrait of Claude A Simard, artist, negotiating winter not by enduring it, but by transcending it—through colour, memory, and intention.
Inside, the table is alive with colour and intention: vases of tulips—yellows, oranges, reds—flare upward with a kind of urgency, their forms simplified yet emphatic, painted with the enthusiasm of a keen observer and admirer. The blues of the chairs and vessels anchor the composition, but also heighten the chromatic intensity of the flowers. The objects scattered across the table—brochures for Holland, the Keukenhof Gardens in Amsterdam, not incidental; they are the intellectual and emotional scaffolding of the scene. They suggest planning, longing, and projection.
Beyond the window, winter persists. Snow blankets the ground in a broad, simplified sweep, and small, colourfully bundled figures move along a path near unidentified buildings. The trees, bare and linear, reinforce a sense of dormancy and pause.
In the world of “Claude A” the title Escape becomes both literal and poetic. Simard is not merely depicting a still life—he is staging a mental departure. The tulips, brought indoors, are more than substitutes for a dormant garden; they are anticipatory, almost prophetic. They embody a future moment—the spring bloom in Holland, a “study trip”, an impending trip to the annual Amsterdam Tulip Festival, anticipated and already vividly imagined.
We discover a portrait of Claude A Simard, artist, negotiating winter not by enduring it, but by transcending it—through colour, memory, and intention.
