LOT 237

BCSFA CGP OC RCA
1913 - 2007
Canadian

The Crofton Waterfront
oil on canvas
signed, dated 1971 and inscribed "Crofton" and on verso signed, titled, dated, inscribed with the Dominion Gallery inventory #H6272 and stamped with the Dominion Gallery stamp
32 x 48 in, 81.3 x 121.9 cm

Estimate: $150,000 - $200,000 CAD

Sold for: $153,400

Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave

PROVENANCE
Dominion Gallery, Montreal
Peter and Joanne Brown Collection, Vancouver
Sold sale of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, Wednesday, November 23, 2016, lot #237
Private Collection, British Columbia

LITERATURE
Jacques Barbeau, The E.J. Hughes Album: The Paintings, Volume 1, 1932 - 1991, 2011, reproduced page 57


Crofton, a small town on the eastern shore of Vancouver Island, was a short distance from E.J. Hughes’s home at Shawnigan Lake. Its harbour was active with marine traffic—from pleasure craft, fishing boats and freighters transporting lumber to ferries plying Stuart Channel, between Crofton and Saltspring Island. Here, Hughes deftly captures Crofton’s nautical atmosphere in a scene full of fascinating detail. Beside the skeleton of a beached boat sinking into the sand in the foreground, logs escaped from booms pull the viewer’s eye straight to the jaunty bright white and red boat mid-ground and the man close by on shore. In the background is the industrial dock with piled lumber and a waiting freighter. All these elements are arranged with a sense of natural order in Hughes’s finely honed composition, and there is much for the eye to absorb as we move through successive layers of this scene. Hughes captures this small community’s industriousness and its relationship with the sea, giving the viewer a sense of both vitality and tranquility.


Estimate: $150,000 - $200,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


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