World-renowned artist Charles Pachter believes, in a way, he owes his storied career to Queen Elizabeth II.
The 79-year-old Orillia resident first painted the young Queen 50 years ago in 1972.
“I was a grassroots Canadian kid who was somewhat bewildered by the fact that the head of state didn’t live here,” Pachter explained. “When Pierre Trudeau started calling her the Queen of Canada it twigged me.”
After having an epiphany in the middle of the night, Pachter decided to tape clippings of Elizabeth to an old school projector and created an art piece of the Queen riding a Canadian moose.
“In those years the CBC would always show her marching around Buckingham Palace on her horse and they would play God Save the Queen,” Pachter said. “In school, they called the moose the monarch of the north, and here was me being affectionately mischievous as a grassroots Canadian artist.”
Pachter says the painting caused a scandal; many people were disgusted with his views of the monarchy.
“People said I should go back to where I came from, which is North Toronto,” he said. “It turned me into a Canadian Andy Warhol and overnight I became famous for the image.”
Pachter's painting was in newspapers all over the world and it made him into a notorious young artist at just 30 years old. Even today people are paying Pachter around $75,000 for a painting of the Queen on a moose.
In 2015, Pachter was invited to London, England for the unveiling of a painting he had sold that was donated to the High Commission of Canada to the United Kingdom, in London.
“I didn’t know the Queen was coming to cut the ribbon,” he said. “She was 89 at the time. She was tiny; she’s like five feet with her hat.”
When approached by Elizabeth, Pachter explained to her that he had created his most famous image and made a living off the painting of her riding a moose as the Queen of Canada.
“She giggled and said how amusing,” Pachter remembers. “She wasn’t offended, she thought it was cute.”
Pachter says Elizabeth was charming and personable despite meeting hundreds of thousands of people in her lifetime.
“Because of the age of the internet, all the stuff about her family has become transparent,” he said. “Through it all, she has prevailed and died peacefully on a late summer day surrounded by her family which is a blessing.”
Pachter says he is “grateful” to have painted Elizabeth for five decades despite the initial negative perception of his work.
“These paintings are going to become a part of Canadian art history,” he said.
The passing of Elizabeth wasn’t surprising, said Pachter.
“It’s something of a sigh of relief and a feeling of gratitude for the life she lived and the service that she gave to the world,” he said. “She is probably the most photographed woman in the history of the world.”
