The unauthorized biography of Canada's most famous artist couple and the rivalry that drove them.

She painted as if with pure light, radiant colours making quotidian kitchen scenes come alive with sublimated drama. He painted like clockwork, each stroke precise and measured with exquisite care, leaving no angle unchecked and no subtlety of tone unattended. Some would say Mary Pratt was fire and Christopher, ice. And yet Newfoundland's Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (or Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner...) presented their marriage as a portrait of harmony and balance. But balance off the canvas rarely makes great art, and the Pratts' art was spectacular.
As a youth at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Mary pursued her future husband, a prodigious art talent, and supported his determination to study painting instead of medicine. They married and removed themselves to a Newfoundland outport where his painting alone provided the means to raise a family. But as Mary's own talents became evident and she sought her own hours at the easel, when not raising their four children, and as rumours of Christopher's affair with a young model spread, the Pratts' harmonious exterior slowly cracked, to scandal in Newfoundland and fascination across the country. A marriage ended, and gave way to a furious competition for dominance in Canadian art.

CAROL BISHOP-GWYN is a writer and dance historian. She holds two post-graduate degrees in dance history and has taught courses at York University, Ryerson University, and the School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Bishop-Gwyn has worked as a broadcaster and producer for CBC National Radio and as a freelance magazine writer.

Carol Bishop-Gwyn's profile page

“A fascinating view into how dueling ambitions and marital betrayal helped inspire some of the pair’s most iconic paintings.” —Sue Carter, Toronto Star

“As profound a portrait as I have read about the complexity of marriage between artists and the compromises a great female artist is willing to make. But when Mary Pratt painted portraits of her husband’s mistress and did it more powerfully than he, you have to question who was the more willful. Bishop-Gwyn’s writing is intense and elegant and makes Art and Rivalry a page turner.” —Rosemary Sullivan, author of Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva

“Carol Bishop-Gwyn offers a remarkable double portrait of Canada’s first couple of painting. She explores the lives of Mary and Christopher Pratt with the insight and sympathy of a friend and insider, and the wide lens and forensic scrutiny of an historian. Along the way we learn of the passions, tragedies and rivalries behind two extraordinary bodies of work.” —Ross King, author of Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies

“Carol Bishop-Gwyn has written a book unlike any other on two of Canada’s most important painters, Mary Pratt and Christopher Pratt. An insightful biography of remarkable but rival artists, it explores the complicated and troubled marriage that fuelled the renowned careers that defined the country’s cultural landscape in distinct ways. Beautifully written and researched, Art and Rivalry takes readers into the Pratt’s volatile Newfoundland home and deftly examines what drove Mary’s domestic scenes of emotion and turmoil and Christopher’s depictions of control and order. Deeply compelling, provocative and enlightening, this is a must-read for anyone interested in Canadian art and the complicated underpinnings of creativity.” —Sara Angel, PhD, Founder and Executive Director, The Art Canada Institute