PROVENANCE
Douglas Duncan, Picture Loan Society, Toronto
Mrs. R.L. Anderson, through the Frieda James Studio, Toronto, 1951
By descent to Nancy Goss, Toronto
Peter Ohler Fine Arts Ltd., Vancouver
Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, Vancouver, 1994

LITERATURE
David Milne Jr. and David P. Silcox, David B. Milne: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings Volume 1: 1882 - 1928, 1998, reproduced page 372, catalogue #204.112

EXHIBITED
Hart House, University of Toronto, Ajax, Water Colours by David Milne, March 1947, titled as Wheelbarrow on the Douglas Duncan list

While staying at Dart’s Lake in New York, David Milne was offered the use of a cottage at Mount Riga, south of Boston Corners. Part of the deal was that Milne would carry out repairs on the cottage, and this image is of the rebuilding of the porch. The catalogue raisonné indicates the date of origin of this image as October 22, 1922, when he executed Building the Porch I. He then worked on this version from February into April of 1923. At this time, Milne was exploring reduction in his images. In Building the Porch III, it is astonishing what he evokes with simple lines, a carefully limited palette of brown, orange and green accentuated with black, and sections of unpainted ground that create the awareness of open space. Milne’s all-important lines are composed of several different strands of colour entwined together. In Building the Porch III, Milne takes the everyday and makes it extraordinary by evoking every element important in the scene through minimal means.

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