Provenance
Anne Douglas Savage, Montreal;
Sale of Joyner Fine Art, Canadian Art, May 15, 1990, lot 90;
Private collection, Vancouver;
Masters Gallery Ltd., Calgary;
Peter Ohler Fine Arts Ltd., Vancouver;
Private collection, Vancouver;
Sale of Heffel Fine Art, Canadian, Impressionist & Modern Art, May 29, 2019, lot 116;
Private collection, Toronto
Literature
A.Y. Jackson, A Painter’s Country: The Autobiography of A.Y. Jackson, 1958, pp. 60-62;
Naomi Jackson Groves, A.Y.’s Canada, 1968, p. 42;
Baie St. Paul would become a recurring and important sketching place for the A.Y Jackson, who in 1923, visited the area with Edwin Holgate. On this trip, he wrote a letter to friend of the Group of Seven Fred B. Housser about the village: “there is a good deal of primitive here yet, thatched barns and many timber houses and a few old stone ones. It is a very beautiful place, almost too much for painting. The ready-made composition has to be avoided.” (1)
The panel Baie St. Paul originally comes from the collection of Anne Savage, and bears her inscription to verso. Savage and Jackson had an important friendship that began when they met in 1919, shortly before Jackson’s first trips to Baie St. Paul. They started corresponding regularly in the mid 1920s, and shared feedback on each other’s paintings, discussed art in general, and shared updated on their lives. At two points during their long friendship, one or the other proposed that they might share a life together (2), though it evidently never worked out. Ultimately, the two remained important friends in a mutually supportive relationship that endured many decades.
1. A.Y. Jackson, A Painter’s Country: The Autobiography of A.Y. Jackson, 1958, pp. 60-62;
3. Barbara Meadowcroft, Painting Friends, p. 90
“Seldom was there found a subject all composed and waiting to be painted; out of a confusion of motives the vital one had to be determined upon. Sketching here demanded a quick decision in composition, an ignoring or summarizing of much of the detail, a searching-out of significant form, and…
“Seldom was there found a subject all composed and waiting to be painted; out of a confusion of motives the vital one had to be determined upon. Sketching here demanded a quick decision in composition, an ignoring or summarizing of much of the detail, a searching-out of significant form, and a colour analysis that must never err on the side of timidity. One must know the North country intimately to appreciate the great variety of its forms. The impression of monotony that one receives from a train is soon dissipated when one gets into the bush. To fall into a formula for interpreting it is hardly possible. From sunlight in the hardwoods with bleached violet-white tree trunks against a blaze of red and orange, we wander into the denser spruce and pine woods, where the sunlight filters through – gold and silver splashes – playing with startling vividness on a birch trunk or a patch of green moss.”
Born in Montreal, A.Y. Jackson left school at the age of twelve and began work at a Montreal printing firm. In 1906, he undertook art studies at the Art Institute in Chicago. The following year he enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris and remained in France until 1912. During this period, his painting was strongly influenced by the Impressionists.
After his return to Canada, Jackson took up residence in Montreal and made many sketching trips to the surrounding countryside. Harris and MacDonald were impressed by Jackson’s work and, in 1913, persuaded him to move to Toronto.
“Jackson’s great sense of adventure carried him from the east coast across Canada to the Rocky Mountains of the west. Every spring, he made regular sketching trips to Quebec and travelled to the far regions of Canada during the summer, including the Canadian Arctic. In the fall, he returned to the Studio Building in Toronto where he lived until 1955, spending the winters painting canvases. He continued this active lifestyle until he was in his eighties.”
A.Y. Jackson, “Sketching in Algoma”, Canadian Forum, March 1921, p. 175
