Spring Live Auction Preview Now Open | A Peter Clapham Sheppard Masterwork

Posted May 20, 2025 by Cowley Abbott & filed under Cowley Abbott Updates.

SELECT MASTERWORKS OF CANADIAN & INTERNATIONAL ART (1)

**View Rob Cowley’s Video Highlighting This P.C. Sheppard Masterwork**

Peter Clapham Sheppard: Chronicler of the Urban Environment

Cowley Abbott is delighted to be entrusted with a rare and masterful work by Peter Clapham Sheppard, The Bridge Builders, Construction, Bloor Street Viaduct, 1915.

P.C. Sheppard was one of the first among Toronto’s early twentieth century modernists to record the urban experience during a period of dynamic growth and change. Such massive building projects proclaimed this city’s unstoppable industrial and technological age. Bridge Builders is an emblem of the aspirational spirit of a confident nation that will soon emerge from the crucible of war proud, independent, and with a new global identity. Sheppard is captivated by the movement, light, and activity of ports, railyards, markets, parades and the circus. The artist extols the humanity of the workers who laboured there, mostly new immigrants, whose toil wove together the rich multicultural fabric we enjoy in Toronto today.

Cowley Abbott is very proud to be entrusted with this painting, which makes its auction debut in our Spring Live Auction of Select Masterworks of Canadian and International Art on May 28th.