The Distribution of the Government Bounty on Great Manitouling Island 1856 - William Armstrong R.C.A.

The Distribution of the Government Bounty on Great Manitouling Island 1856

Exhibited:
Canadian Historical Exhibition, Victoria University, Toronto.

Provenance:
A.V. White;
Blair Laing

Illustrated:
The Art of William Armstrong by H.C. Campbell, p. 66-67

Girl in Blue Room 1966 - Maxwell Bates R.C.A.

Girl in Blue Room 1966

Portrait de Femme 1891 - Henri Beau

Portrait de Femme 1891

Blancs Métaux 1955 - Paul-Émile Borduas

Blancs Métaux 1955

Paul-Émile Borduas (1905 – 1960) is one of the most important figures in modern Canadian art. Throughout the 1940s, he was the inspired leader of a group of young artists known as the Automatists. He occupies a central role in the cultural history of Quebec as the main author of the inflammatory manifesto, Refus Global. After its publication in 1948, Borduas was fired from his teaching job and eventually left Quebec for good. He lived in New York for two years from 1953 to 1955. This vibrant painting was executed shortly before he left for Paris in the fall of 1955. It is a prime example of his New York work at its most impassioned best and shows evidence of the stylistic impact of his brief American sojourn. This is most notable in its “all-over” composition with equally-weighted elements arrayed across the entire pictorial field. Assimilated from Abstract Expressionism, this new approach to compositional structure was a radical departure from the more illusionistic format of his early Classic Automatist paintings, in which objects hover over a receding background. While indebted to some aspects of the American art of this time, Borduas’ abstract expression was an original idiom of his own making: never declaratory and always personal, his much smaller easel-sized paintings are emotionally-charged.

This passionate painting demanded intense concentration during its slow and deliberate execution. Borduas constructed the painting using a broad palette knife heavily loaded with creamy pigment, a process that culminated in an incredibly rich, nuanced and layered surface. Thick swatches of white are trowelled across an underlying layer of black. The wide swath of the tool leaves traces of broken colour in its wake. These veins of colour serve as directional markers within the composition. While there is a hint of depth in the blacks, the lavish orchestration of the whole keeps the eye resolutely on a largely white surface, enlivened with brilliant touches of vivid red and surprising glints of green. Further, the viewer is beguiled by the sheer viscosity of the impasto which adds an element of plasticity to the painting. When the raised ridges of paint actively catch light and throw shadows, these are real effects intrinsic to the experience of the painting. This is not illusionism but a tangible emphatic presence that creates a bond between the viewer and the painter.

Monique Westra

Canadian Rockies on Fraser River District 1886 - William Brymner R.C.A.

Canadian Rockies on Fraser River District 1886

A Southwesterly Gale 1917 - Frank Carmichael R.C.A.

A Southwesterly Gale 1917

Franklin Carmichael (1890-1945) was one of the founding members of the Group of Seven. In the years before its formation in 1920, Carmichael’s travels were limited by his full time-job as a commercial artist and his family commitments. His only painting trip during this period to a more remote region was in 1916 when he stayed at the cottage of arts patron Dr. James MacCallum on Georgian Bay, the location of some of the most iconic images associated with the Group of Seven.

This dramatic oil painting was done in Carmichael’s Toronto studio, adapted from a watercolour sketch executed on site. Carmichael presents a panoramic view of Georgian Bay, seen from an elevated, oblique viewing distance in the windy aftermath of a fierce storm. A high vantage point was his favourite sketching position and he sought to convey the immediacy of the scene as he looked down and across into the vast expanse of the bay. There is a luminous streak of light close to the high horizon line portending the end of the storm. But there is still ominous power in this turbulent sky: clouds and wind are felt as formidable, moving elements with weight and substance, in configurations that resonate with the land masses and water on the ground below. This feeling for volume, essentially a sculptural sensibility, can also be seen in the boulders. Each is perceived as a distinct entity, outlined in black, and painted with directional brushstrokes that emphasize the plasticity of their forms. At the same time, the huge granite rocks serve a collective compositional function. They solidly occupy the foreground, bracketing the left edge of the painting as a dark triangular repoussoir, which directs the viewer's eye toward the light in the distance. Recession into space is also conveyed by the zigzagging shoreline and a convincing diminution in scale. The boulder closest to the viewer is tilted upward, its rock face painted with long brushstrokes that point to a glowing land mass far below, in the centre of the composition. To some extent, Carmichael’s penchant for stylization is reminiscent of Lawren Harris with whom he is often compared. But Carmichael’s simplification of form and his palette were never as radically reduced as those of Harris. While Carmichael may have experienced a heightened spiritual awareness in spectacular locations such as Georgian Bay (and years later, Lake Superior and La Cloche), his sensibilities always remained firmly grounded. He was acutely receptive to changing atmospheric conditions and his work was never still, never otherworldly. Carmichael responded with light, shadow and colour to the sensory stimuli of the scene before him.

Monique Westra

Trees and Sky 1934 - Emily Carr

Trees and Sky 1934

Totem Near Alert Bay, B.C. - Emily Carr

Totem Near Alert Bay, B.C.

Street in Glen Williams c.1938 - A.J. Casson R.C.A.

Street in Glen Williams c.1938

Alfred Joseph Casson (1898 – 1992) was an accomplished designer and artist who joined the Group of Seven in 1926 as its youngest member. Together with his close friend, mentor and colleague Franklin Carmichael, he co-founded the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour.

This exquisite large canvas is unusual in Casson’s prodigious body of work: few works in his repertoire of small town scenes are as vividly coloured; nor does foliage play as dominant a role. Indeed, in this painting, dazzling fall colours take centre stage and literally overshadow the architecture that is generally the focus of his town scenes. This emphasis on radiant colour, as well as its compositional dominance in the picture, serve to paradoxically lend a vivid sense of dynamism to an otherwise quiet scene. In many ways, this atypical and spectacular painting reconciles the best aspects of Casson’s work, bringing together the structure, clarity and energy of his landscapes within the context of small town Ontario, his favourite subject in the 1930s. Casson was fascinated by small towns, hamlets and villages, not only because of the distinctive architecture but also because of the people who lived there. In this painting, a quiet and understated exchange takes place between a man and a woman whose poses are curiously similar. The lone striding man, with his shovel casually slung over his right shoulder, turns his head. His gaze is met by a young woman in a pink blouse who stands behind the fence, outside her house. This tiny anecdotal detail is unimportant in the larger scheme of things but is not without significance: it creates a pervasive sense of humanity and gives a sense of scale to the overall composition. The winding unpaved road is flanked by houses and trees, whose heavy, nodding foliage meet in the centre of the picture. The rays of the late afternoon sun filter through this dense panoply, casting irregular patterns of light and purplish shadows on the road. The intense illumination from the west sculpts the tree trunks, reinforcing their volume and plasticity. The massive size of the trees is exaggerated by cropping at the sides and at top of the canvas. The painting is richly and lavishly painted, presenting a veritable chromatic feast. This is undoubtedly Casson’s most masterful tribute to autumn in small town southern Ontario and one of the finest works of his long career.

Monique Westra

Ship and Observer - Alex Colville

Ship and Observer

The Ice Cutters c.1925 - Maurice Cullen R.C.A.

The Ice Cutters c.1925

About this Work:
Maurice Cullen (1866-1934) was an important Montreal-based artist, a contemporary of William Brymner and James Wilson Morrice. His studies in Paris from 1888 to 1892 and his subsequent visits to the French capital had a huge impact on his style which was essentially a form of Impressionism. His approach influenced other Quebec artists, including Frederick Coburn and his stepson, Robert Pilot. While the Quebec countryside was his favourite subject, he also painted fine urban scenes of Montreal and Quebec City. Like other Quebec Impressionists, Cullen loved winter.

This painting depicts ice-cutting on the St. Lawrence River at Longueuil, essentially a 19th century industry, soon to be made obsolete by the widespread use of artificial refrigeration. Cullen’s fascination with this lingering practice in rural Quebec led to the creation of several major works of art. The painting is an evocative depiction of early dawn, when the darkness of the night sky gradually yields to the emergent light of day. In this crepuscular half-light, a silent team of icemen are engaged in the gruelling task of harvesting ice from the frozen river. The removal of its top thick layer has exposed the black, reflective surface of the river and created an irregularly-shaped aperture. Its long edges are straight as a result of the labours of the men, who systematically cut long continuous strips of thick surface ice, before sawing them into huge chunks. The turquoise ice blocks are laid out along the water’s edge, ready to be loaded onto the waiting wagon, a low-slung sleigh pulled by a pair of sturdy horses. A zigzagging trail in the snow leads to two ramps abutting the ice house where the blocks will be stored.

The painting is almost monochromatic in its coloration, marked by an emphatic tonal contrast which bisects the composition into foreground and background: the lighter expanse of snow below and the darker area of buildings, forest and sky above. The variegated overall surface is richly impastoed with tightly juxtaposed and overlapping brushstrokes in varying shades of blues, highlighted by glints of light from the rising sun, still hidden from view. The billowing smoke from the twin smoke stacks absorbs the glow of the early morning sun, its pastel hues blending seamlessly into the intricate tapestry of blues, greens, pinks and violets that make up the dawn sky. Cullen’s technique is pure Impressionism but his subject matter is more related to 19th century Realism. By adapting an Impressionist style to the depiction of an authentic winter industry, set in a rural Quebec context, Cullen has created a quintessentially Canadian and unique version of Impressionism.

Monique Westra

Composition No. 5 1953 - LL Fitzgerald

Composition No. 5 1953

Lionel Lemoine FitzGerald (1890 -1956), the last member of the Group of Seven, was based in Winnipeg. Throughout most of his career, he created consummately graceful compositions of urban scenes and interiors. In the 1950s, he turned to abstraction to express his emotional and spiritual perception of nature. Fitzgerald’s lyrical abstract paintings of this period are few in number, rarefied objects as precious as jewels. Each painting took a very long time to complete as the artist worked slowly, with painstaking care, applying tiny dabs of pigment in remarkably delicate gradations of value, to build up infinitely subtle and precisely modulated compositions of dazzling complexity and beauty. Composition 5 is an achingly beautiful example of L.L. FitzGerald at his best.

FitzGerald was a quiet mystic who revered nature, especially the boundless prairie of Manitoba which remained throughout his life his greatest inspiration. He said, “...subconsciously the prairie and the skies get into most things I do no matter how abstract they may be.” Like all of his late abstractions, the source of this painting lies in the natural world. Through exquisite refinement, FitzGerald distilled material phenomena into an immaterial, harmonious world of glowing light, infinite space and luminous colours; an alternative world of spirit, not matter. In the overall composition, a large arena of light emerges from an area of mysterious shadows, perhaps suggestive of the passage of time. The centre of the image reveals a horizon line, bordered by pale blue that appears as the end of a passage, flanked on both sides by intersecting orbs and soaring weightless shafts, expanding upwards through space like rays of light. The sense of spatial recession, effected through overlap, tonal transition and contrast, is most pronounced below the horizon line. Above it, the surface of the painting gently vibrates as crisp contour lines dissolve, fusing overlapping planes into unified, expansive fields. The mellifluous poetry of flowing curvilinear and straight lines, volumetric forms and flat shapes, discreet chiaroscuro and soft colour, coalesce into an expression of unity within an indefinable space.

Monique Westra

Morning Restigouche - John Arthur Fraser R.C.A.

Morning Restigouche

A Laurentian Homestead, Les Eboulements 1923 - Clarence Gagnon R.C.A.

A Laurentian Homestead, Les Eboulements 1923

Exhibited:
British Empire Exhibition, 1924;
Art Association of Montreal, 1925;
Canadian National Exhibition, 1925;
National Gallery of Canada, 1926;
Clarence Gagnon Retrospective, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, 2006-2007

About this Work:
Clarence Gagnon (1881-1942) was a truly great Quebec artist, and one of the most accomplished landscapists in the history of Canadian art. He studied in Montreal (under William Brymner), lived in Paris, and travelled throughout Europe, the United States, England and Canada. But his most profound attachment was always to his native province, especially the Charlevoix region, which was the inspiration for many of his most important paintings, including this one. It was Gagnon who introduced this countryside and its picturesque villages to A.Y. Jackson, Albert Robinson and Edwin Holgate.

The quietude and timeless beauty of the Charlevoix countryside in winter is lyrically conveyed in this simple and sparse painting, featuring a rural farmhouse, a habitant in a horse-drawn sleigh, a great expanse of deep snow and distant mountains. Yet, the simplicity of the picture belies its sophistication in compositional design and colour manipulation. The painting is structured along horizontals. For example, by placing the sleigh with its seated passenger closer to the left side of the canvas, the artist prompts a reading from left to right. In this way, the lumbering passage of the horse-drawn sleigh parallels the softly undulating lines of the distant hills. This recurring, horizontal rhythm establishes a pervading sense of calm. The tranquility of the scene is further expressed in the broad uninterrupted expanse of deep snow, pierced only by the tops of three scrawny pine trees. Occupying the entire lower half of the composition, the softly glimmering surface of the snow is articulated by pinks and light blues. Gagnon was a master at combining in one painting broad tonal areas with sections of high contrast. He was a superb colourist who ground his own pigments. Here the white snow abuts the silhouetted trees on the dark mountainside in the distance, its deep ultramarine hue, in turn, crisply delineated against the lighter blue of the mountain beyond it. The high saturation of the loosely painted mountains is bold and counter-intuitive in terms of traditional atmospheric perspective. Also brightly coloured is the characteristic rural farm house, partially obscured from view by a huge mound of snow. Rising above the horizon line is its dark pitched roof, with its prominent chimney and three small dormer windows. Gagnon seems to emphasize the life within the house by using warm colours to depict its exterior. He adds concentrated orange-reds as accents and contour lines, repeated in the doors and on the sides of the dormer windows. These intense reddish notes echo the loosely painted touches of red in the early morning sky, reflecting the glow of the rising sun.

Monique Westra

Camp Alaska Highway, Northwest of Whitehorse 1943 - Henry George Glyde R.C.A.

Camp Alaska Highway, Northwest of Whitehorse 1943

Icebergs, Smith Sound II 1930 - Lawren Harris R.C.A.

Icebergs, Smith Sound II 1930

About this Work:
Lawren Stewart Harris (1885-1970) was the catalyst for the creation of the Group of Seven and was its leader. There are fewer than forty extant sketches painted by him during his only trip to the Arctic. These extraordinarily beautiful and dramatic paintings are among his most profound works. Although carefully composed in his characteristically disciplined manner, this small oil sketch represents an intensely-felt response to being in the Arctic, an experience of inestimable meaning for Harris. In both prose and poetry, he had extolled the symbolic significance of The North as source of “spiritual replenishment.” Throughout the 1920s, Harris was embarked on a spiritual quest, a search for ultimate truth that had taken him to increasingly austere sites from the north shore of Lake Superior to the Rockies. In the late summer of 1930, Harris and A.Y. Jackson spent two months visiting remote Arctic communities onboard the Canadian supply ship Beothic.

The title, Icebergs, Smith Sound II, is brief, objective and precise in situating the scene in the icy waters located between Greenland and Baffin Island. Yet the otherworldly quality of the painted image seems to defy earthly coordinates, evincing less a sense of place than an ineffable evocation of transcendence. This effect is enhanced by the sparseness of the image, cool blue tonalities and a destabilizing composition which seems to suspend time and space. With no anchoring foreground, the viewer is detached from the main theme which plays out in eerie silence in the middle ground. Here, four icebergs of varying sizes and shapes float, as if on a stage, coming together and drifting apart, opening up a void in the centre of the composition. The icebergs are illuminated by an unseen light source that sculpts their forms, emphasizing their architectonic structure, while at the same time, outlining their irregular forms in an ethereal glow. The grey-blue colour of a cloudless sky transitions from light to dark, from left to right. This subtle shift, expressed by intangible tonal values, is countered by a movement in the opposite direction of solid mass seen in the diagonal ascent of the angular contours of the icebergs. The encompassing spirituality of the painting is revealed in the monochromatic palette of blues, a colour of high symbolic import in Theosophy. An intense streak of blue crosses the black water, less a reflection on the surface than a glow emanating from within its fathomless depths, where the enormous bases of the icebergs are submerged – a metaphor for the hidden nature of ultimate truth.

Monique Westra

Young Girls 1945 - Prudence Heward

Young Girls 1945

About this Work:
Prudence Heward (1886-1946) is best known for her association with the short-lived Beaver Hall Hill group. Throughout her career, she was totally integrated in a vibrant arts community in Montreal. Especially active during the interwar period, Heward produced paintings in all genres but her most original and powerful works are portraits of strong, independent women. Although she was a portraitist, Heward did not depend on paid commissions, a situation which allowed her the freedom to paint subjects of her own choosing. In addition to family and friends, she employed models whom she placed into carefully contrived poses in outdoor settings that are rich in symbolic meaning. Her portraits are never simple or direct representations. Through gesture, body language, facial expression and setting, Heward hints at a narrative context for her psychologically complex figures. In her mature work, the tenor of her images changed and included more ambiguous and increasingly vulnerable women. This monumental painting is a prime example. It depicts two unnamed young women seated in an orchard, and was painted in Fernbank, the family summer home on the St. Lawrence River near Brockville, where Heward spent the last years of her life. But, the rolling landscape is not recognizable as a particular place; nor does it present a convincing illusion of spatial depth. Instead, the background appears as a backdrop, a reading encouraged by the vertical format of the painting and the high horizon line. It is clear that this is a symbolic landscape, rendered freely and rhythmically with loose brushstrokes in vivid colours. There is a disjunction between the apple tree and the two bare trees on the hill. One represents summer, fecundity and life while the other speaks of winter, barrenness and death. It is significant that this painting about life and death was one of only a small number of paintings executed in 1945, a year before the artist’s death. At this point in her life, Prudence Heward was desperately ill and her deteriorating health made it impossible for her to paint for long stretches of time.

A sense of theatrical artifice is further reinforced by the spatially ambiguous, stacked placement of the two sitters and the absence of cast shadows. They may be seasonal apple pickers who have paused for a break, seated together under the sheltering awning of the stylized apple tree. The crown of the tree has been simplified into a perfect hemisphere, a dominant curved form that is repeated in the rounded backs and kerchiefed heads of the barefoot young women, whose bodies are linked in a pronounced serpentine or backward “S” formation, suggestive of a bond between them. Yet, in spite of their physical proximity, each woman is alone, lost in her own thoughts. Their self-protective poses and their pensive facial expressions project a sense of resignation and lassitude, a moving image of pathos and profound loss.

Monique Westra

St. Fidèle, Quebec 1928 - Alexander Young Jackson R.C.A.

St. Fidèle, Quebec 1928

About this Work:
Alexander Young Jackson (1882-1974) was one of the most visible and active spokesmen for the Toronto-based Group of Seven and its nationalist ideology. But he always remained loyal to his Quebec roots. Starting in the 1920s, he made annual excursions to rural Quebec in the late winter and early spring when warming temperatures made it possible for him to paint en plein-air. The quaint villages along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River became a much beloved part of his repertoire. Typically, Jackson visited the villages on snowshoe, an endearing habit that earned him the good-natured moniker of Père Raquette. Although gregarious, fluent in French and friendly with the local people, he remained essentially a tourist. Like his friend, the eminent anthropologist Marius Barbeau, Jackson believed that the simple way of life of the habitants would inevitably yield to progress.

This vibrant painting presents the small village of Saint-Fidèle on the St. Lawrence River, seen from an elevated, distant and oblique vantage point. There is an element of nostalgia inherent in this engaging representation, as if this tiny picturesque village, perched at the edge of the mighty river, was already of another time. Ironically, Jackson’s tribute to the past is expressed in the visual language of modernism. He reduces his subject to its essential forms, eschewing details in favour of key elements, such as the generalized representation of the church. The church of Saint-Fidèle is recognizable in the acute steeple rising from the rectangular lantern atop a pitched roof and in the light-toned façade with its triad of narrow arched windows as well as the simple geometry of the nave. This emphasis on reductive geometric forms is also evident in the almost cubist depiction of the houses, which appear compressed due to the artist’s vantage point. The painting is structured through a series of horizontal planes which recede into space, from the snowy foreground to the low-lying mountain silhouetted beyond the south shore. This painting is vintage Jackson, with the high horizon, small houses, and the rolling expanse of deep snow which takes up over half of the pictorial field. The snow is vigorously articulated by rhythmic patterns of wavy lines in blues, pinks and violets. This may be the palette of Impressionism but Jackson’s robust style is much more dynamic than the early modernism practised by many of his Quebec friends and contemporaries.

Monique Westra

Starry Night - Franz (Frank) Johnston R.C.A.

Starry Night

Canadiens Preparing for Town - Cornelius Krieghoff

Canadiens Preparing for Town

Marie-Gemma - Jean Paul Lemieux R.C.A.

Marie-Gemma

Envol Orange 1961 - Rita Letendre R.C.A.

Envol Orange 1961

Sunshine, Old Logging Road, Algonquin Park 1914 - Arthur Lismer R.C.A.

Sunshine, Old Logging Road, Algonquin Park 1914

A Sandy Beach 1918 - J.E.H. MacDonald

A Sandy Beach 1918

New England House 1922 - David Milne

New England House 1922

The Bazaar 1964 - Janet Mitchell R.C.A.

The Bazaar 1964

Uninoir 1956 - Guido Molinari R.C.A.

Uninoir 1956

Chasse Sous Marine 1958 - Alfred Pellan R.C.A.

Chasse Sous Marine 1958

Karlukwees, B.C. 1929 - Walter Joseph Phillips R.C.A.

Karlukwees, B.C. 1929

View of Quebec from Levis 1925 - Robert Pilot R.C.A.

View of Quebec from Levis 1925

About this Work:
Robert Wakeham Pilot (1898 - 1967) was one of a number of important Quebec Impressionists. Like many of his contemporaries, Pilot was a student of William Brymner at the Art Association of Montreal before spending extended periods of time studying in France. Although he made many painting trips overseas, Montreal remained his home base. The single most important influence on his life and art was his stepfather, Maurice Cullen. Clearly, Pilot was not alone in his love of winter but he was particularly adept in the depiction of twilight. This undated atmospheric sketch reveals his enthusiasm for distinctive Quebec subjects. It features a dense composition showing a characteristic scene of activity in the cab stand of the ferry landing. In the moody half-light of twilight, the departing steam boat ferries passengers between Lévis and the old town of Quebec. In the foreground, the blue mass of a wedge-shaped snow bank on the left is balanced by the dark silhouetted forms of a group of passengers huddled together in an open sleigh, drawn by a sturdy draft horse. Both the stationary horse, shown in profile, and the painting’s subject are strongly reminiscent of James Wilson Morrice, an artist whom Pilot greatly admired. The generally dark and tonal painting is animated by touches of red: in the faces of the people in the sleigh, on the horse, in the smokestack and in the striped pattern on the ferry beyond. The artist differentiates between the soft glow of warm yellow light from within the steam boat and the harsher white twinkling lights of the lower old town of Quebec reflected in the icy waters of the St. Lawrence river. The shape of the ferry visually rhymes with the distinctive contours of the Hotel Frontenac on the hill in the background. The commanding presence of the Canadian Pacific hotel is almost obscured by the enveloping clouds and the darkening sky. In this loosely painted sketch, Pilot’s touch is quick and his vision assured. It dates from a period in Canadian art dominated by the Group of Seven. Pilot was a close friend of A. Y. Jackson and exhibited at the Group’s first exhibition in 1920, even though he did not share their ideological and nationalistic agenda. He preferred, like other Quebec artists of his generation, to focus on local scenes, far removed from the unpeopled wilderness associated with the Group. His intense paintings express the passion of one who is intimately familiar with his own place and his own time.

Monique Westra

Composition 1949 - Jean Paul Riopelle R.C.A.

Composition 1949

About this Work:
Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002) is widely considered to be one of Canada’s greatest artists, the first with a truly international reputation and the leading abstract artist of his generation. He studied with Paul-Émile Borduas, an unorthodox and passionate teacher who inspired him to make his first abstract painting. Riopelle was part of a group that became known as the Automatists for their spontaneous approach to painting. In 1948, Riopelle was a signatory to the Refus Global, their inflammatory manifesto. Unlike Borduas, he went on to enjoy a long, enormously successful career in France where he had been living since 1947. From 1974 he divided his time between his homes in Quebec and France, returning to Canada permanently in 1994.

Riopelle’s prolific career spans over a sixty year period. Although he produced a prodigious body of work in different media, he is most admired for his extraordinary and gutsy painting. His legacy as a painter can be traced to early energetic works such as this one, done in Paris in 1949. It is a fine example of his vibrant and distinctive style compressed into a tiny format. The complex and textured surface of the painting is a colourful, layered skein, made up of splotches, drips and strokes of black, white, red and ochre. The execution was spontaneous and bold. Applying paint directly from the tube, Riopelle began by covering the surface with broad, irregular patches of alternating colours. On top of this dense but relatively structured ground, he unleashed a torrent of viscous cream-coloured impasto. Its downward trajectory is met by upsurging filaments of paint, exploding in chaotic abandon. The whole messy concoction is visually thrilling and a harbinger of the extraordinarily dynamic monumental paintings of the early 1950s that made him famous.

Monique Westra

Les Eboulements en Haut 1924 - Albert H. Robinson R.C.A.

Les Eboulements en Haut 1924

About this Work:
Although Hamilton-born Albert Henry Robinson (1881 – 1956) was not a native Quebecer, he became a passionate chronicler of the countryside and villages of his adopted province. Like his friends A.Y. Jackson, Clarence Gagnon and Edwin Holgate, Albert Robinson was drawn to winter landscapes, and was particularly enchanted by the picturesque villages and hamlets along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. Robinson’s best work in this genre was executed throughout the 1920s, a time of prodigious activity, when he joined A.Y. Jackson on annual visits to this region. Robinson’s interpretations are distinguished by a heightened, luminous palette which gives his paintings a sense of joy. His fresh, outdoor sketches became the bases for larger oils on canvas executed in his Montreal studio. The subject of this characteristic painting is Les Éboulements in the Charlevoix region, a tiny village perched high above the river valley. Its dramatically elevated site, the result of landslides that had occurred hundreds of years earlier, affords a spectacular panoramic view, popular with many artists. But, in this colourful painting Robinson prefers to represent the village on its approach, an ascent along a rutted road, flanked by an old wooden fence, which winds past the houses, as it curves into the heart of the enclave. Here the tall steeple of the church rises against a serene cyan/turquoise sky. This vivid colour is complemented by an intense orangey hue, seen in the fiery tint of the pediment of a house aligned just below the church steeple in the centre of the composition. To the left, a softer tone of the same colour is seen on the siding of a house with a distinctive mansard roof. This warm accent colour is repeated to great effect throughout the composition, contrasting with cool greys of barns and old houses outlined in purple, and blues in the road and snow. The orchestration of high and low-keyed colour is masterful, confirming Robinson’s reputation as a distinguished and subtle colourist. The lower half of the composition is dominated by mounds of deep snow animated by meandering striations in pastel hues that rhythmically lead up and into the distance. Robinson’s love of colour and pattern, loose brushstrokes, broad handling and simplification of form are clearly related to Impressionism and reflect his application of early modernism acquired during his studies in Paris and his many trips to Europe. Sadly, Robinson’s painting career was abruptly and permanently curtailed when he suffered a heart attack in 1930 and developed severe arthritis in his hands.

Monique Westra

Back Through the Night 1954 - William Ronald R.C.A.

Back Through the Night 1954

Blackfoot War Party 1902 - Charles Russell

Blackfoot War Party 1902

La Ferme Dans La Montagne - M.A. Suzor-Coté

La Ferme Dans La Montagne

Woodland, Algonquin Park 1915 - Tom Thomson

Woodland, Algonquin Park 1915

About this Work:
Tom Thomson (1977-1917) was closely associated with the artists who later became the Group of Seven. His artistic career only lasted five years but his influence is timeless and legendary. Thomson has become a figure of almost mythical status in Canadian culture and it is impossible to overstate his importance and national significance. The small oil sketches that he executed en plein-air were never intended to be finished works of art. They were preliminary studies which captured and enhanced elements directly observed from nature. This dynamic small sketch was done in Algonquin Park, heartland country for the Group of Seven and especially for Tom Thomson. It features one of his most recognizable viewpoints - looking through a frieze of trees to the waters of the lake beyond. The main subject is the screen of maples and birches which create a sheltering and private space for the unseen artist. The composition is made up of essentially two segments horizontally spanning the pictorial field: a broad foreground and a wider body of water. The bare young trees are sketchily depicted in long, thin strokes of black, white and brown, in a rhythmic design that lends a pronounced graphic quality to the image. This type of painterly drawing is also evident in the prominently placed log, its lower edge traced in black, with curving, narrow bands of cast shadows on its surface. The maturity of the fallen tree lends a note of pathos to the image. Its pronounced diagonal thrust is crucial to the composition, effectively directing the eye of the spectator toward the water and into the distance. Yet, this perceptual illusion of depth is simultaneously denied by the insistent flatness of the linear patterns on the picture plane. This spatial ambiguity is no less than a form of Cézannesque “flat depth,” a modernist approach to pictorial space that Thomson intuitively used in this rapid sketch. The emphasis on the surface is further enhanced by the vigorous application of paint, barely contained within the network of lines and so urgently and loosely painted that parts of the raw support remain visible. Swatches of relatively muted colour - moss green, ochre, sienna and grey-blue- are animated by top notes of light orange, suggestive of leaves and splashes of light.

Monique Westra

Taches Libres - Claude A. Tousignant R.C.A.

Taches Libres

Romantic Coast - Frederick Horsman Varley R.C.A.

Romantic Coast

Spotted Cow - Nicholas de Grandmaison R.C.A.

Spotted Cow

Illustrated in Drawn from the Past, p.94