Modern, Impressionist & 19th Century Art Spring 2021

A.Y. Jackson’s sketching expeditions frequently lasted from a month to six weeks, though on occasion he made shorter trips with friends. On 5 January 1949 he wrote to Harry McCurry, Director of the National Gallery of Canada, that he was leaving the next day for Haliburton with his prospector friend, Keith MacIver, the occupant of Tom Thomson’s shack behind the Studio Building. He was back in Toronto by the 16th. This excellent sketch of a snow-covered hillside was painted on this previously unrecorded excursion. From...

Simply said, Still Life from Seaforth Ave. is one of the finest paintings by Ethel Seath that collectors will have the opportunity to own. Its brilliant execution in the style of Canadian modernism, and its combination of personal, domestic and cityscape subjects, perfectly encapsulates the environment in which the women associated with the Beaver Hall Group existed. This is undoubtedly why this painting was selected as the cover illustration for Galerie Walter Klinkhoff’s 1987 Ethel Seath Retrospective Exhibition Catalogue (fig. 1). Those who have followed...

John Lyman came from a cultured, upper-class Puritan family in New England [1]. In 1886, the year he was born, his father became a Canadian citizen and established his pharmaceutical business with operations from Montreal to Vancouver. John was two years old when his mother succumbed to typhoid fever. Despite having a governess and an affectionate father, John Lyman lived a solitary childhood in Montreal. The family was interested in painting and John’s uncle, James Morgan, had a collection of impressive works by the Barbizon...

End of Summer is a generational painting and perhaps Surrey’s most important painting of this vintage. This painting served as the cover image on the catalogue of the Philip Surrey Retrospective Exhibition, September 18 - October 2, 2004, hosted at Galerie Walter Klinkhoff. The location is somewhat recognizable. The artist has located himself on Fairmont at Jeanne-Mance, looking West with a slice of Mount Royal in the distance. As is characteristic of some of the best of Philip Surrey, he is working with the mystery...

This composition is inspired by the intersection of Montreal’s St. Remi and St. Jacques streets. Surrey’s interpretation is surreal, having entirely removed everything that is ancillary to his requirements. There is no spontaneity to his painting. Terry Rigelhof, General Editor of Discovering Philip Surrey, The Artist in the City Project, records 11 and conceivably 12 versions of this monumentally important picture executed over a period of some 5 years during which the artist worked it up to this state, the grand finale. The Musée National...

Lafresnière, First Snow illustrates that brief time of year, when the leaves are still a brilliant array of reds and oranges and yet, a soft, glistening layer of snow lightly covers the ground and rooftops. This brief moment of transition between the fall and the winter is perhaps the best subject matter for Fortin, a virtuosic colorist, as it implored him to broaden his palette and marry the reds of the fall with the blues of the winter. In this picture, it is impossible to...

Frank Johnston got his real start as an artist when he worked at Grip Limited in Toronto in 1911. At this lively, highly competitive commercial art firm, he met future Group of Seven members J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, and Franklin Carmichael. There is no record of his meeting Tom Thomson but both were at Grip at the same time. Likely they spoke or, at least, had a nodding acquaintance. Doubtless, Johnston would have watched Thomson go on his painting trips (which began in 1912) with...