Sold for: $23,400

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Toronto
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, November 28, 2013, lot 179
Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Jennifer Watson, Albert H. Robinson: The Mature Years, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, 1982, page 14

This exceptional work was painted on Albert Robinson’s lesser-known trip to Europe in 1913. He had already been to France in 1903 to study and in 1911 to sketch with A.Y. Jackson, so was well aware of the South of France, to which artists flocked in the summer months to capture the light effects of the Mediterranean sun. Robinson noted in a letter to T.R. MacDonald, “I painted (courtesy of Davis) in (Nice, Fr) in oils and Venice watercolours Italy also Naples in 1913.” Robinson was attracted by this distinctive harbour, full of striking boats and ringed by colourful buildings backed by a steep hill. His mastery of Impressionist tenets is manifest in his acute awareness of light and atmosphere in this scene - through the slight haze of heat, in the reflections shimmering across the surface of the water, and in the white-based palette that makes his warm and cool-tone pastels glow. As Robinson’s career was cut short by illness, works by this important Canadian Impressionist are rare and sought-after, and Nice is a fine example of his Mediterranean work.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars