PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Ontario

LITERATURE
Thomas R. Lee, Albert H. Robinson: “The Painter’s Painter,” 1956, unpaginated

Throughout the 1920s, Albert Robinson went on sketching trips to villages along the St. Lawrence, including Baie-Saint-Paul, Les Éboulements, Sainte-Fidèle and Saint-Tite-des-Caps. He was often accompanied by friend and Group of Seven member A.Y. Jackson as well as other artists, such as Edwin Holgate, Randolph Hewton and Clarence Gagnon. For several winter seasons Robinson frequented La Malbaie, including a sketching trip with Hewton and Jackson in 1927, the same year in which he painted Moonlit Village in the Hills, Quebec. Robinson was devoted to capturing the quiet villages of the Quebec countryside, and from these sketching trips he translated his deep affection for the landscape and its inhabitants into the charming snowy scenes for which he became renowned. Arthur Lismer notably called him “a colorist of the first order,” and Moonlit Village is a quintessential example showcasing Robinson’s mastery of colour and sensitive application of paint. The muted blue tones of the hillsides rising in the background, pastel-coloured buildings, and sloping shadows on the evening snow deftly create an atmospheric stillness, while the shoveled pathways and warm glow from the windows signal the quiet interior life of a town at rest.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars