Seated Worker – Welder

These drawings devoted to war industries are part of a large group of works produced by Muhlstock in 1943. For several months, he immersed himself in the world of the workers at the Canadian Vickers shipyards and United Shipyard plants in Montreal. As he recounted: “I spent hours watching the workers at their jobs. It came to me one day that an entirely different technique would have to be used to paint them. In both my drawings and paintings from that time, the line is more abrupt, the light is less subtle, the subject is vaguer and the colour is heavier and denser.” These chiaroscuro drawings celebrating the contribution of the working class to the war effort counterbalance his depictions of the societal hardships of the time.