"Every day advanced the passing of the leaf, and soon our painters had to go in quest of the desirable 'spot of red.' The hills that had been crimson and scarlet with maple were changed to purplish grey. The yellow leaves were following fast. They realized one night of breaking cloud that there was a growing moon, and they looked at old star friends from the car door - the Dipper lying flat among the spruce tops, and one rare night bright Capella dimmed in a jet of Aurora. After such a night the trees could resist no longer, and they saw many a one cast off all her leaves in one desperate shower. Birch woods, that were dense yellow in the morning were open grey by night. But the wild cherry leaves still hung as though the high fifes and violins were to finish the great concert of colour. They were another of the notable little graces of the bush, daintily hung in every shade from palest yellow to deep crimson against the big blue-gold hills of the Montreal Valley." (1)

J.E.H. MacDonald was born in Durham, England and in 1887 immigrated to Canada, settling in Hamilton, Ontario. He studied art at the Hamilton Art School and the Central Ontario School of Art and Design, Toronto.

In 1895, MacDonald joined the design department at Grip Ltd., the commercial art firm where he worked until 1911. It was at this time that Lawren Harris persuaded MacDonald to start painting full time. Harris had seen MacDonald's paintings at one of the Arts and Letters Club exhibitions in Toronto.

MacDonald's interest in sketching the rugged Canadian landscape resulted in many excursions throughout Quebec and Ontario, including St. Jovite and Algonquin Park. He also accompanied Harris, Jackson and other of the artists on many sketching trips. MacDonald participated in the famed "boxcar" trips to the Algoma region. The large panoramic paintings resulting from the boxcar trips are among MacDonald's most accomplished works. He also travelled throughout the Rockies and produced many memorable paintings of this mountainous landscape.

1 MacDonald on Algoma; Toronto AGT, Algoma Sketches and Paintings - J.E.H. MacDonald ARCA, Lawren Harris, Frank Johnston (May 1919).