Literature:

Joan Murray, Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century, Toronto, 1999, page
82, reproduced.

Note:

Painted in 1944.

Joan Murray notes that the subject of “Pink Frock, London” is rare in Canadian War Art. While many artists produced memorable depictions surrounding Canada’s involvement in battle around the world, Harold Beament gives an explicitly personal direction to the bombed buildings rendered within his canvas. In a June, 1983 letter to Murray, the artist recalled his initial discovery of the scene he would later portray: “It was a quiet Sunday following a heavy air raid of the previous night. I was wandering along a street mainly consisting of rooming houses that had suffered extensively in the raid. The house that drew my attention had been severely blasted. Most of the front of the building had been blown off laying bare several of the rooms. On the first floor, in what had been a tiny bedroom, the one thing that moved idly in the gentle breeze was a pink dress swinging on a hanger. It almost seemed to do a sad little dance of mourning for its owner – now dead. I found myself reflecting on the reaction that would arise in the feelings of a young soldier on shore leave after a lengthy tour of duty at sea, bursting with love and high hopes for his reunion with his sweetheart – the girl who owned the ‘pink frock’ – and now this.” During the period in which “Pink Frock” was painted, Harold Beament served as Senior Naval War Artist, retiring from the Navy in 1947.

We would like to thank art historian, Joan Murray, for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.