Quarantine got us like…

Joseph Plaskett, “The Fireplace, East Side,” 1988-93
soft pastel on 12 panels
300 x 130 cm
Collection of the Penticton Art Gallery. Gifted by Joseph Plaskett.

Joseph Plaskett is considered to be one of Canada’s most talented and established painters. In the spring of 2001, he was awarded The Order of Canada for excellence in the field of visual art. Since the 1940s, he has had over 65 solo and group exhibitions, with work in major public, private and corporate collections, including the National Gallery of Canada.

Born in 1918 in New Westminster, B.C., Plaskett studied art in Banff, San Francisco, New York, London, and Paris. His chosen subjects have always been intimate expressions of everyday life – interiors, still life, and portraits of friends and models. There is a warm humanity to his work, a love of light and form and colour that is evident in every painting he produces. The works are composed with such superb quality of painting that the ensuing results are masterworks of visual delight.