Sold for: $103,250

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, New York
Fine Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings by Canadian Artists, Christie, Manson & Woods (Canada) Ltd., Montreal, May 3, 1974, lot 118
Acquired from the above by a Private Collection, Montreal
By descent to the present Private Collection, Victoria

LITERATURE
Hugues de Jouvancourt, Clarence Gagnon, 1970, the related 1907 canvas Summer Breeze at Dinard, collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, reproduced page 18
René Boissay, Clarence Gagnon, 1988, the related canvas Brise d’été à Dinard reproduced page 80
Hélène Sicotte and Michèle Grandbois, Clarence Gagnon, 1881 – 1942: Dreaming the Landscape, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, 2006, the related canvas Brise d’été à Dinard reproduced page 90 and listed page 343

EXHIBITED
Musée national des beaus-arts du Québec, Quebec City, Clarence Gagnon, 1881 – 1942: Dreaming the Landscape, June 7 – September 10, 2006, traveling in 2006 – 2007 to the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, catalogue #28

Clarence A. Gagnon liked working with small surfaces. With his attention to detail, precision and descriptive composition, he mastered the art of drawing and etching, and was able to produce vibrant and detailed scenes of Venice and of Norman villages on copper plates barely more than 10 x 20 centimetres in size. Indeed, it was as an etcher that the Canadian artist first gained international acclaim in the years following his arrival in Paris (1904 – 1908). But Gagnon’s passion for painting remained despite the sudden success he gained from his etchings. In 1908, he reaffirmed his desire to be known first and foremost as a painter.

Like fellow Canadian artist James W. Morrice, whose pochades dazzled the young artist on his early visits to the Salon de Paris, Gagnon did his own oil studies on tiny, hand-sized wooden boards. With just a few quick brush-strokes—often done on the spot in front of his subject—the artist captured exquisite views like Jardin du Luxembourg (Luxembourg Gardens) in 1904 or 1905 (collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, L83.6), in which Gagnon eschews the line and detail of the draughtsman for the juxtaposed colour strokes of the painter.

In the summer of 1907, Gagnon discovered the beaches of the Emerald Coast, in Brittany, which became his preferred subject for the next two years. Inspired by the seaside resorts of Saint-Malo and Dinard that he visited in this period, his rare known pochades document his famous Impressionist paintings, such as Les deux plages, Paramé, Saint-Malo (The Two Beaches, Paramé, Saint-Malo), 1908 (collection of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery), the painted study for which, The Beach at Saint-Malo (private collection), was rediscovered in the United States a few years ago and sold by Heffel in 2020. Gagnon’s small-format works are generally meticulously executed, with a finesse and attention to certain details that would become his hallmark during his prolific small-format period in Charlevoix.

Beach Scene at Dinard is more akin to the free style of his depictions of the Luxembourg Gardens. Reminiscent of Morrice, it lets the material itself play a predominant role, with impastos and textures that are at one with the architecture and liveliness of the scene. Here, Gagnon alternates between long, vigorous strokes of colour spread across the planes of the composition (especially on the beach) and rapid notations of elements that evoke a seaside atmosphere. The painter’s gestures also contribute to the overall movement of this small seascape, swept by a cool coastal breeze. The result is a soft, airy composition that is completely in step with the choreographed interplay of human figures, boats and clouds.

Beach Scene at Dinard is remarkably composed, with four bands superposed horizontally. The light-blue band in the middle focuses the gaze on a group of bathers, with diagonals radiating out towards the four corners of the panel. With Gagnon, nothing is improvised, and this masterfully executed Impressionist gem demonstrates the painter’s ability to capture fleeting, ephemeral sensations. The public re-emergence of Beach Scene at Dinard after almost half a century also sheds new light on another splendid painting held at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec since 1937, Brise d’été à Dinard (Summer Breeze at Dinard), which is three times larger than Beach Scene at Dinard. At its centre, the larger composition incorporates a version of the pochade, with certain notable differences, including the white-clad figures walking in the opposite direction, the reduced size of the bathers, and the position of the sailboats on the horizon.

When Gagnon died in 1942, his widow Lucile Rodier-Gagnon catalogued and numbered the 670-odd pochades she found in his Paris studio and their Montreal home. A number of small paintings, which the artist sold or gave away during his lifetime, are not included in this catalogue. Such is probably the case for Beach Scene at Dinard, which ended up in an American collection before appearing for the first time at a Christie’s auction in Montreal in 1974.

We thank Michèle Grandbois, co-author of Clarence Gagnon, 1881 – 1942: Dreaming the Landscape, for contributing the above essay, translated from the French.

Included with this lot is a copy of the 1974 invoice from Christie, Manson & Woods (Canada) Ltd.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars