Vince De Vita d. 1973

Vince De Vita emigrated from New York to Toronto in 1925 where he remained for much of his career.  He worked as a theatre art director, a commercial artist (de Vita's studio), and an arts lecturer.  He became a member of the Arts and Letters Club and was elected a life member.

This lot and the other that follows belong to a group of paintings discovered in the attic of a Rosedale residence in the 1990's.   The scenes depict subjects relating to leisure and industry including canoeing, train travel, farming, manufacturing, golfing, and camping.

Speeding Locomotive was likely commissioned for a trade show or exhibition.  From a formal perspective, De Vita employs graphic line and saturated expanses of flat colour to construct the landscape and give his subjects form - a practice consistent with his commercial art training and a precursor to Modernist painting approaches to come.

See also lot 107.