Lot # 245

Alexander Young (A.Y.) Jackson
1882 - 1974

North Shore, Lake Superior
oil on canvas

25 x 32 in   63.5 x 81.3 cm

Provenance:
Collection of the Artist
Charles S. Band, Toronto, acquired from the above in 1937
Estate of Helen E. Band, Toronto

In his autobiography A Painter’s Country, A.Y. Jackson writes about the collectors who came to his studio during his career. In a chapter entitled “Some Visitors at the Studio”, and scattered here and there throughout the rest of the text, Jackson recalls his patrons, the collectors who determined to purchase the work of the Group when others were denouncing it. Among these early enthusiasts he counts Charles S. Band, and acknowledged the impact of his support, stating, “With such enlightened people giving a lead and showing their faith in the work of Canadian artists, the vital phase of the Group’s battle against entrenched conservatism was ended.” Band’s purchase of this magnificent Lake Superior canvas speaks to his enlightened understanding of Canadian art and his keen understanding of Jackson’s work
Lake Superior appealed greatly to Jackson’s sensibilities. He loved the roll of the land, the exposed rock, the earthy toughness of windswept shores and scrubby forests. He understood it, and knew what it took to travel and camp there. The land had a toughness that matched his own, and he was its equal. The variety of colour appealed to him as well; it was a vivid tapestry of a landscape that he loved. Jackson wrote, “The CPR main line follows the north shore of Lake Superior from Heron Bay westward to Port Arthur. I know of no more impressive scenery in Canada for the landscape painter. There is a sublime order to it, the long curves of the beaches, the sweeping ranges of hills, and the headlands that push out into the lake. Inland there are intimate little lakes, stretches of muskeg, outcrops of rock; there is little soil for agriculture. In autumn the whole country glows with colour; the huckleberry and the pincherry turn crimson, the mountain ash is loaded with red berries, the poplar and the birch turn yellow and the tamarac greenish gold.” Jackson sketched the North Shore there repeatedly, usually in the company of Lawren Harris, later turning some of these sketches into oils on canvas. His understanding of the region is what makes these canvases really sing. Jackson’s knowledge of the land he painted was hard won through first hand experience. He tramped through muskeg, snowshoed across winter fields, paddled down rivers. He kept his feet firmly on the land he painted - it was his point of contact, his creative source. Unlike Harris, whose connection to the land was increasingly intellectual, Jackson’s was physical.
In North Shore, Lake Superior, we see all the elements that make a Jackson painting really stand out. In the middle ground, we have Jackson’s rolling rhythmic hills, so exemplary of his Algoma and Lake Superior works, and used with mastery here. The vast surface of Lake Superior runs directly out behind the hills, taking our eye with it across the windblown water’s surface to the distant shore. Rain clouds billow along the top edge of the canvas, their churning humid forms reflecting light back to the lake below. In the near ground, impressionistic shrubs break up the rhythm of the hills, and a small, sinuous tree sits defiantly in the immediate foreground. This little tree, quietly reminiscent of Jackson’s The Red Maple (in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada), bends with the same rhythm as the hills, but its branches run perpendicular to them. It has a rather jaunty, impertinent character to it. Still hung with berries, it defies the end of summer, refusing to let go of its fruit. Jackson’s ability to dance subtle colour across the surface of a canvas works in rhapsody here; warm red-browns move through grey and blue into silver-blue, and are touched with dashes of purple and red. The variety of directions of the brushwork in the canvas contributes greatly to its varied interest, as do the bands of light that edge the headlands in the water.
We know from Jackson’s autobiography that the weather was often poor during his camping trips to Lake Superior. Harris, his companion one year, would rise before daylight and start moving about the tent, prodding Jackson to rise. Jackson would complain: “What’s the use of getting up…..It’s raining.” Harris would invariably reply, “It is clearing in the west.” In this sublime canvas, regardless of the direction we are looking, it appears to be clearing in the distance.
North Shore, Lake Superior is indeed a Jackson masterwork. As with other works from the estate of Helen E. Band, this magnificent painting, originally acquired directly from the artist by Charles S. Band, is available here for the first time since leaving Jackson’s studio.


Estimation: 450,000 $ ~ 550,000 $
Sold for: 526,500.00 $