Sold for: $49,725

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Montreal
Private Collection, Vancouver
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 25, 2005, lot 70
The Art Emporium, Vancouver
Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
A.Y. Jackson, A Painter’s Country: The Autobiography of A.Y. Jackson, 1958, page 46
Naomi Jackson Groves, A.Y.’s Canada, 1968, page 114

Algoma was one of A.Y. Jackson’s favourite parts of Canada, and even though it was a large area stretching from south of Sudbury and westward to above Sault Ste. Marie, he explored much of it. Naomi Jackson Groves writes, “This country, with its vast receding stretches of long-rolling forms, is the type that J.E.H. MacDonald and A.Y. have both loved to tackle.” On the second boxcar trip Jackson took into this country, with Lawren Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald and Frank Johnston in 1919, the artists were thrilled with its beauty. Jackson wrote: “Outside, the aurora played antics in the sky, and the murmur of the rapids or a distant waterfall blended with the silence of the night.” Their boxcar would be moved every few days, and they immersed themselves in each new view of the country. Jackson anchors the painting with the strong foreground rock formations, then pulls the eye to the expansive vista on the horizon. This sketch is a superb example of Jackson’s skills as a colourist with its intense blue sky and bright slashes of orange-red autumn leaves, which give a feeling of warmth and gaiety to the magnificent solitude.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars