Sold for: $49,250

PROVENANCE
Stevens Art Gallery, Montreal
Private Collection, Edmonton, 1946
Canadian Art, Joyner / Waddington's, November 20, 2007, lot 46
Private Collection, Calgary

Few locations are more key to Canadian Impressionism than Canoe Lake, Ontario, and few moments are more central to its development than the years preceding World War I. A.Y. Jackson spent much of 1912 painting in Europe, and by the spring of 1913, he began to incorporate these European influences, producing breakthrough works such as Émileville, Que., sold by Heffel May 25, 2023. This new style is evident here in his subtly impressionistic sky and Art Nouveau trees, merged with a painterly ruggedness.

By late 1913, Jackson would arrive in Toronto and meet Tom Thomson, whose own imminent breakthroughs would be centred in the primordial beauty of Algonquin Park. Thomson encouraged Jackson and others to journey north with him, but an October 1914 excursion would be the sole sketching trip the two would take together, resulting in works such as October, Canoe Lake, an intriguing double-sided sketch. Soon to be separated by the Great War, neither artist could know that within a few years, this lake would be the source of both profound poetry in art and mysterious tragedy, with Thomson’s untimely demise. In this moment, painting with a freshly forged vision, Jackson and Thomson were artists at the genesis of an era.

On verso is a sketch of the aurora borealis.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars