Sold for: $20,000

PROVENANCE
A Prominent Toronto Collection
John Hampton Hale, Montreal, 1995
By descent to the Estate of Nancy Ryrie Birks Hale, Montreal
Sold sale of Canadian, Impressionist & Modern Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, November 21, 2018, lot 132
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Wayne Larsen, A.Y. Jackson: The Life of a Landscape Painter, 2009, page 27

A.Y. Jackson professed that “all right-minded Montreal artists aspired to go to Paris and most of them wanted to study at the Académie Julian.” Thus in September 1907, Jackson arrived in Paris and began his training at this popular art school. He was there at an exciting time, when the Impressionists were shaking up the art world. He traveled to Italy, to Bruges, Belgium and small French towns, but by the end of 1908, he was back in Paris. He spent most of that year in France, exhibiting in the Paris Salon, and was also there in 1911 (with Albert Robinson) and from 1912 to 1913. From 1916 to 1918, he was in northern France on and off during World War I, as a soldier and a war artist.

On the Seine is a bright and vigorous work from his time in Paris. Painted on the spot, the scene reflects the Impressionists’ fascination with atmosphere with its billowing cumulus clouds glowing at the edges and light reflected in the river water. Jackson built this strong image with broad, vigorous brush-strokes, deftly capturing the bustle of trade and transport on the French dock.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars