Sold for: $79,250

PROVENANCE
A gift from the Artist to Nancy Archer, Toronto and United Kingdom
By descent to Betty Archer, United Kingdom
Banting Research Foundation, Toronto, by anonymous gift, 2010

In 1921, Frederick G. Banting and Charles H. Best discovered insulin at the University of Toronto, and forever altered medical history. In addition to his medical research, Dr. Banting was an accomplished artist, whose works, including The Lab (1925), sold by Heffel in November of 2018, are collected globally. In the same year as The Lab was painted, the Banting Research Foundation was established to support health and biomedical research in Canada, and almost 100 years later, it is still committed to this goal. Seeking out important emerging research conducted by early career health scientists in Canada, the Banting Research Foundation has supported over 1,350 researchers with funds totaling $8.6 million through grants such as the Discovery Award Program, its annual peer-reviewed competition.

Heffel is honoured to partner with the Banting Research Foundation by offering two exceptional works by Dr. Banting from its collection in support of the foundation’s important fundraising goals. This year marks the centennial of the first successful injection of insulin, to 14-year-old Leonard Thompson at Toronto General Hospital, and the Banting Research Foundation looks forward to supporting the next century of world-changing medical advances.

Penetanguishene, sometimes shortened to Penetang, is a town in Ontario’s Simcoe County, on the southern shores of Georgian Bay. Frederick Banting may have been introduced to the area as a painting location by his friend and sometimes sketching partner A.Y. Jackson, a member of the Group of Seven, who frequented the region as early as 1913. This oil sketch shows Banting to be a gifted landscape artist with a sure eye for composition and a keen sense of colour, confidently capturing a bucolic autumnal scene with a striking authenticity.

Banting’s inscription on verso is also noteworthy. Painstaking research on the part of the Banting Research Foundation revealed that the first owner of this painting, Nancy Archer, was employed as Dr. Banting’s housekeeper at his home at 46 Bedford Road, Toronto, in 1930 and 1931. The gift of this painting to Archer, along with a kind inscription, is very much in keeping with Banting’s generous reputation with regard to his artwork. Archer returned to her native England in the early 1930s, and after she passed this work on to her younger sister Betty, Penetang, along with Quebec Village, lot 103 in this sale, was anonymously gifted to the Banting Research Foundation in 2010.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars