Sold for: $38,350

PROVENANCE
Galerie Walter Klinkhoff Inc., Montreal
Continental Galleries of Fine Art, Montreal
Peter Ohler Fine Arts Ltd., Vancouver
Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Hélène Sicotte and Michèle Grandbois, Clarence Gagnon, 1881 - 1942: Dreaming the Landscape, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, 2006, page 116

In July 1912, Clarence Gagnon returned to Quebec from Paris, settling in Baie-Saint-Paul again until late fall of that year. This was an iconic painting place for Gagnon, who was entranced by the contrast between the mountainous landscape and the small village embedded in it. Villages such as this had been settled for almost three centuries, and Gagnon so appreciated this history that he eliminated all signs of modernization (such as telephone poles) from his paintings of it.

In this exquisite oil sketch, the village is compressed in a horizontal wedge across the picture plane, the pinks, greens and mauve of its houses contrasting with the smoky blues and soft whites of the Laurentian Mountains beyond. A fine touch is the inclusion of the church that rises above the village, somewhat muted by the atmospheric haze. Village of Baie St. Paul perfectly embodies what Hélène Sicotte calls “Gagnon’s quest for beauty...shaped by his ideal of a harmonious relationship between untamed nature and a particular form of civilization.” Gagnon’s bucolic vision of Baie-Saint-Paul brought it into public awareness and attracted other painters to the area.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars