The Fortune Teller

Eveleigh arrived in Canada with a sophisticated knowledge of Europe’s various avant-garde movements, which he gained during his training and from the art milieu he frequented. The same had been true shortly before of Fritz Brandtner, while Gordon Webber had studied with Moholy-Nagy in Chicago. All three of these artists, who would show their work together, were interested in abstraction but continued to produce figurative works influenced by such movements as Cubism and Surrealism. An example is this Fortune Teller, which Eveleigh exhibited in 1942 alongside a number of his abstract works. It was purchased immediately by the Art Association, which that same year also acquired a first still life by Borduas, a landscape by Louis Muhlstock and a portrait by Goodridge Roberts.