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HEFFEL FINE ART AUCTION HOUSE 33
118 ALEXANDER YOUNG (A.Y.) JACKSON
ALC CGP G7 OSA RCA RSA 1882 ~ 1974
Morning, Great Bear Lake
oil on canvas, signed and on verso signed, titled,
inscribed with the Dominion Gallery inventory #4870,
stamped Dominion Gallery and dated 1938 on the
Dominion Gallery label
28 x 36 in, 71.1 x 91.4 cm
PROVENANCE:
Collection of the Artist
Dominion Gallery, Montreal, acquired
from the Artist in February 1948
Private Collection, Montreal, acquired
from the above on July 24, 1950
By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto
LITERATURE:
A.Y. Jackson, A Painter’s Country, The Autobiography of
A.Y. Jackson, 1958, pages 122 and 123
Wayne Larsen, A.Y. Jackson, The Life of a Landscape Painter, 2009,
the circa 1939 canvas South from Great Bear Lake, in the collection
of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, reproduced page 176
In 1938 A.Y. Jackson was invited to visit the newly discovered Eldorado
Mine at Port Radium on the shores of Great Bear Lake. Ever the
adventurer, and by this time a Canadian celebrity, Jackson was flown by
Gilbert LaBine’s company plane from Edmonton to Cooking Lake, further
to Fort Smith, then on to Great Slave Lake for an extended stay at what he
called “…a little centre of industry in a great empty wilderness.” While
few of the miners showed any interest in Jackson’s art, he enjoyed a day’s
company with J.B. Tyrell, a geologist of international fame and namesake
of the Royal Tyrell Museum in southern Alberta. Tyrell was celebrating his
80th birthday with a trip to the North, visiting the Eldorado area and then
heading further north to Coppermine.
In his autobiography Jackson recounts details of most of his travels,
and Great Bear Lake is no exception: “I spent six weeks at Eldorado, from
August into October. The weather was lovely. I wandered over the rocky
hills, which were easy to traverse. There were patches of spruce and small
birch, and muskeg lakes, but mostly open rock.” He had fine weather
well into early October, and works such as this vibrant morning scene
attest to his affinity for the scenery. The rolling rocks and shoreline, the
harmonious tapestry of fall colour and vast, panoramic skies gave Jackson
endless vistas to choose from, and his appreciation for the North, honed
on his Arctic journeys with Lawren Harris, and on his own trip to
Yellowknife, had whetted his appetite for this vast, vivid landscape. He
commented, “Ten years earlier I had been as far as Yellowknife and I
always had a yearning to see what kind of country lay beyond.” His fine
paintings of this region, including masterworks such as South from Great
Bear Lake, in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, attest to his
affinity for the landscape.
Jackson saw more of Canada than any other member of the Group of
Seven. His works paint a picture of the vast variety of topography in
Canada. He was a feeling painter, particularly sensitive to the rhythm of
the landscape. His appreciation for the subtle contrasts of colour in a bed
of moss, of the tones of blue and purple in thin wispy clouds in the sky as
the sun rose, and for the lyrical movement in scrubby, weather~worn
trees is quite poetic. Jackson’s painting trips were almost all undertaken
on foot, and even when in populated areas he sought out open spaces. He
preferred to walk to reach his sketching spots, and it is this time spent on
the land, in physical contact with its very surface, that is so evident in his
works. He knew the surface of the country intimately, and loved to paint
its endless variety. His autobiography and other writings are filled with
the anecdotal observations of a seasoned walker ~ the depth of ditches,
the quality of mud on the roads, the challenge of navigation on snowshoes
in crusty snow or the problems of unnoticed patches of bramble and
thistles. He preferred these intimate details, and noticed them before the
vast panorama. His works attest to this, and Morning, Great Bear Lake is an
especially fine example. In this canvas, he has given a great deal of
attention to the shades of purple, blue and red in the foreground rocks,
and their texture and weight, even their coolness, is palpable in the work.
The soft green of the lichen or moss on the rocks just behind them is a
lovely contrast. Jackson’s earthy palette, taken directly from nature’s
colouration, is enlivened by his hand. The spotty pattern of reflections on
the wind~stirred water, the licks of bright yellow where autumn has
singed the few remaining trees, the bright blue of clear, still water in the
middle distance are characteristic of his technique. The sky in particular
is lovely, with a spectrum of colour from a pale, golden pink to deep cobalt
blue, all blended by the sunrise. Parts of the land have been gilded by the
morning sunlight; others are still in cool fall shadow. It is a richly painted
scene, earthy and true to the region’s unique qualities.
ESTIMATE: $300,000 ~ 350,000