Former North Portal resident Ross King is this year’s recipient of the RBC Taylor Prize, which is the most prestigious honour for non-fiction writing in Canada.
King, who now resides in Oxford, England, was recognized for his book Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of Water Lilies, published by Bond Street Books. This marked the fourth time King had been nominated, and the first time he has received the award.
The $25,000 award was announced Monday by Prize founder and chair Noreen Taylor, during a gala luncheon celebrating this year's finalists at The Omni King Edward Hotel in downtown Toronto.
In addition to the cash prize, Mr. King received a crystal trophy and a leather-bound version of his book.
“Claude Monet's Water Lilies paintings in the Musée de l'Orangerie at the Jardin Tuileries rank among the greatest masterpieces of world art,” the jury stated in its citation. “Their creation came late in Monet's life when cataracts marred his sight, death struck his wife and son, and war raged close to his lily ponds at Giverny.
“Ross King brilliantly captures the furies of Monet and the enormous challenges he overcame in painting the twenty-two panels of lilies that surround l'Orangerie.
“An exceptional art historian, King grasps the political tempests of wartime France, and his portrait of Monet's close friend, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, will be essential reading for all who want to understand the intersection of politics, nationalism, and culture in France during the First World War.
“In this elegantly written and superbly researched book, Ross King illuminates Water Lilies and Monet as no one has before."
King, who is a graduate of the Estevan Comprehensive School and a leading art historian, is the author of such works as The Judgment of Paris; Brunelleschi's Dome; Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling; Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven; and Leonardo and the Last Supper.
His work has twice won the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction.
“Well-crafted prose assumes even greater prestige and authority as we face a near-daily barrage of 'alternative facts' and things that read 'as if' they are true,” said Noreen Taylor, chairperson of the RBC Taylor Prize.
“The RBC Taylor Prize is proud to continue our tradition of support for this essential branch of our national literature. Of course, the task of championing the best in non-fiction reading is a whole lot easier when you have such fine writers as the 2017 finalists."
The other finalists were Max Eisen for By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz; Matti Friedman for Pumpkinflowers: An Israeli Soldier's Story; Marc Raboy for Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World; and Diane Schoemperlen for This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications.
