Mary Pratt Art Analysis

Mary Pratt, a Canadian artist who resides in St. John’s Newfoundland, specializes in realist paintings that concentrate on domestic life and its surroundings. Mary Pratt married Christopher Pratt, who is also a well-known Canadian artist. Christopher had an impact on Pratt’s work, as he strongly recommended the use of photography to his wife. Unfortunately, the two artists separated in the year 1990. Pratt’s artwork includes every day, mundane objects that are monumentalized with her outstanding use of light and colour. The themes of the domestic life and femininity are seen throughout her pieces, along with a strong relationship to the use of photography as an aid in the construction of many of her paintings. This paper will examine the aspects …show more content…
Pratt had to give up a lot of the things that she wanted for her husband to be able to succeed and even though her husband aided in her career, there were many household demands that were put on Pratt, which made painting very difficult for her. At this time, it was the women’s job to cook, clean, take care of the children etc. So, since Christopher Pratt was not responsible for these things, his wife’s career was put on hold. Even Lawren Harris, one of Mary Pratt’s university professors told her “You know,” he said, “that if two artists are married, only one is going to be successful. And in your family, it's going to be Christopher. So why don't you just understand that and look after the house and the kids.” But instead of this statement discouraging Pratt, it lit a fierce light in her, and after this she knew that she had to continue painting. Similarly, Georgia O’Keefe’s husband, Alfred Stieglitz was a famous artist and critic before he had met her. Alfred had a huge impact on Georgia’s career and ended up driving most of her work. This became problematic when Stieglitz started referring to O’Keeffe’s work as sensual and related them to a female experience. This was not the relation that O’Keeffe wanted people to be making towards her work. Both of these women, Pratt and O’Keeffe had husbands who definitely advanced their careers but, the men’s careers were ultimately more important. Regarding the artwork that both female artists produced, O’Keeffe wanted to create something completely new, something that was hers. She is well known for her flower paintings, as well as her paintings consisting of animal skeletons and bones. On the other hand, Pratt painted the mundane objects that were a part of her everyday life. Even though their subject matter is very different, these two female artists used bright and bold