Christiane Pflug

Christiane Pflug (June 20, 1936 – April 1972) was a German-born Canadian painter and draughtswoman. During her short lifetime Pflug established a successful career in Canada. She held a teaching position at the Ontario Art College (now OCAD) in Toronto, as one of four women to teach there during the 1960s as well as considerable attention from galleries, collectors and critics with retrospective at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (1966), Hart House (1969) and the Sarnia Art Gallery (1971).^[1] In 1967 and 1968 she received support from Canada Art Council. Today her paintings hang in National Gallery of Canada (NGC) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).^[2] Pflug was praised for her rendering of Magic Realism in an excerpt from the Toronto Star newspaper (11 June 1969) that remarked, “[t]ime is distorted in her paintings. They’re worked on six hours a day for about nine months, and so the season’s change- but the artist simply incorporates this change into her paintings. The foliage will be [blowing] and dying in different parts of the same painting; or the view outside will be winter, while the reflection on the glass door will be summer”^[3] Furthermore, Pflug's life and career have influenced several biographies, including Ann Davis', Somewhere Waiting: The life and art of Christiane Pflug(1990) and Christine Colney's, Daughter in Exile: The Painting Space of Christiane Pflug (1998).

Biography

Born in Berlin in 1936, Pflug relocated to Paris in 1953 to study fashion design. While in Paris, she met her future husband, Michael Pflug, who became an important influence on her career as an artist. Christiane and Michael married in 1956 and soon after had two daughters, Esther and Ursula.^[4] The Pflug's moved to Tunis, Africa for a brief period while Michael completed a medical internship. After a brief stay in Tunis, Christiane and her daughters moved to Toronto, Canada to join her mother who was already living there.^[5] Michael joined them in 1960 and began his medical practice in Toronto. It was in Toronto that Christiane painted her most recognizable “series, including; city landscapes from her window, a series of interiors with dolls, and larger portraits of her daughter and her art dealer, Avrom Issacs of Issacs Gallery”.^[6]

In Toronto, with little formal training behind her, Pflug painted her everyday environs in a style that has been labelled magic realist.^[7]

Kitchen Door with Ursula (1966) is a prime example of her later style. Here, the viewer looks through the open kitchen door of Pflug's apartment onto an urban winter scene, but the glass panes of the door "reflect" the same scene in the summer, with greenery and a child seated on the balcony. The view is defined by many horizontals and verticals, creating a containment that is common in her paintings, which often feature windows and birdcages. She also painted many urban landscapes. Pflug said of her art, "I would like to reach a certain clarity which does not exist in life. But nature is complicated and changes all the time. One can only reach a small segment, and it takes such a long time."^[8]

Death

On April 4, 1972 Pflug committed suicide by taking an overdose of Seconal^[9] on the beach of Hanlan’s Point on Toronto Island, which was one of her favourite outdoor painting places^[10] A play based on her life—Christiane: Stations in a Painter's Life—by Francophone writer Marguerite Andersen was produced in 1996 by the Factory Theatre Cafe in Toronto.^[11]

References

External links

• www.christianepflug.com
• The Canadian Encyclopedia: Pflug, Christiane