Brook in Autumn (1), Algoma, 1918 (circa)
Oil on board
8 1/2 x 10 3/8 in
21.6 x 26.4 cm
21.6 x 26.4 cm
This painting is presently on view at our Toronto gallery
Sold
Provenance
Collection of the ArtistJim Lawson, Toronto
Acquired from the above no later than 1934 or 1935 by W. Donald Patterson, Toronto
By descent, Private collection, Toronto
Heffel Fine Art Auction House, Fine Canadian Art, November 22, 2012, lot 109
Walter Klinkhoff Gallery Inc., Montreal
Private collection, Montreal
Literature
J.E.H. MacDonald Papers, J.E.H. MacDonald Papers, 30 D, Volume 3 (Ottawa: National Archives of Canada, n.d.), unpaginated.
Thoreau MacDonald, J.E.H. MacDonald, 1873–1932 (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1957), unpaginated.
“I believe that the first artist to insist that our painting should be an interpretation of our own country was J.E.H. MacDonald” — A.Y. Jackson
(Foreword, Frederick Simpson Coburn by Gerald Stevens, 1958)
Brook in Autumn is painted with the authority of an important legacy composition by the master during one of J.E.H. MacDonald’s legendary boxcar sketching trips to the Algoma region in 1918 and 1919. These were among the most consequential of his career and helped shape the future direction of Canadian landscape painting. It is one of MacDonald’s highly celebrated “brook” sketches, including McMichael’s Leaves in the Brook and Woodland Brook, in which he reveals the liberation that the northern wilderness brought to his art. This speaks to McMichael Executive Director Ian A.C. Dejardin’s remark, “J.E.H. MacDonald’s use of Post-Impressionist colours and bravura brushwork is unmatched by any other Canadian artist” (https://mcmichael.com/press-release/up-close-and-personal-with-j-e-h-macdonalds-artistic-practice/). Here, colour becomes the principal subject.
J.E.H. MacDonald transforms the forest into a symphony of colour, where autumn is experienced as its most exuberant crescendo. Brilliant cadmium yellows flare across the foliage like bursts of sunlight, while incandescent oranges and deep crimsons sweep through the undergrowth in rhythmic ribbons. Rich greens linger among the trees, their cool tones heightening the fiery warmth surrounding them, and passages of violet, umber, and black lend the composition a remarkable depth and resonance.
MacDonald’s brushwork is thick and sculptural, with strokes of paint laid down with extraordinary confidence, each mark preserving the artist’s immediate response to the landscape. Rather than describing every leaf and stone, he captures the sensation of standing beside a woodland brook at the height of October, when colour seems almost too intense for nature itself. The stream, dark and reflective, provides a quiet visual pause amid the surrounding blaze, mirroring fragments of light and colour.
Brook in Autumn, ca. 1918, is a painting of extraordinary intensity, a celebration of the fleeting glory of the Canadian autumn in Algoma and a testimony to J.E.H. MacDonald’s contribution to the Group of Seven in defining a new national artistic language.
(Foreword, Frederick Simpson Coburn by Gerald Stevens, 1958)
Brook in Autumn is painted with the authority of an important legacy composition by the master during one of J.E.H. MacDonald’s legendary boxcar sketching trips to the Algoma region in 1918 and 1919. These were among the most consequential of his career and helped shape the future direction of Canadian landscape painting. It is one of MacDonald’s highly celebrated “brook” sketches, including McMichael’s Leaves in the Brook and Woodland Brook, in which he reveals the liberation that the northern wilderness brought to his art. This speaks to McMichael Executive Director Ian A.C. Dejardin’s remark, “J.E.H. MacDonald’s use of Post-Impressionist colours and bravura brushwork is unmatched by any other Canadian artist” (https://mcmichael.com/press-release/up-close-and-personal-with-j-e-h-macdonalds-artistic-practice/). Here, colour becomes the principal subject.
J.E.H. MacDonald transforms the forest into a symphony of colour, where autumn is experienced as its most exuberant crescendo. Brilliant cadmium yellows flare across the foliage like bursts of sunlight, while incandescent oranges and deep crimsons sweep through the undergrowth in rhythmic ribbons. Rich greens linger among the trees, their cool tones heightening the fiery warmth surrounding them, and passages of violet, umber, and black lend the composition a remarkable depth and resonance.
MacDonald’s brushwork is thick and sculptural, with strokes of paint laid down with extraordinary confidence, each mark preserving the artist’s immediate response to the landscape. Rather than describing every leaf and stone, he captures the sensation of standing beside a woodland brook at the height of October, when colour seems almost too intense for nature itself. The stream, dark and reflective, provides a quiet visual pause amid the surrounding blaze, mirroring fragments of light and colour.
Brook in Autumn, ca. 1918, is a painting of extraordinary intensity, a celebration of the fleeting glory of the Canadian autumn in Algoma and a testimony to J.E.H. MacDonald’s contribution to the Group of Seven in defining a new national artistic language.
