ALC CGP G7 OSA RCA RSA
1882 - 1974
Canadian
Great Slave
oil on canvas, circa 1949
signed and on verso signed and inscribed "639-81" and indistinctly
20 x 25 in, 50.8 x 63.5 cm
Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000 CAD
Sold for: $55,250
Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave
PROVENANCE
Gilbert A. LaBine, Ontario
By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto
LITERATURE
Naomi Jackson Groves, A.Y.’s Canada, 1968, pages 201 and 204
A.Y. Jackson’s first trip to the Great Slave area of the Northwest Territories was with fellow artist Dr. Frederick Banting and geologist Dr. James MacIntosh Bell in July of 1928. Bell had traveled there extensively and guided them through this vast landscape, where Great Slave Lake is as big as an inland sea. The North held a great attraction for Jackson, and he returned to this area in 1949, 1957 and 1959.
In this stunning canvas Jackson depicts the electrifying phenomenon of the northern lights. Their greenish glow shoots upward into a sky studded with stars and reflects in the water below. Purple and pink hues in the clouds and sky, deepening at the horizon, suggest one of the North’s long sunrises or sunsets. Describing the 1928 trip, Jackson later noted in his autobiography that while “crossing Great Slave Lake, we travelled all night, though night is not the proper word, as it just got dark enough to see a pale aurora play across the northern sky.” Bell also recorded this crossing in his memoirs, recalling that as they sailed into the dawn, “the smoothly billowing water scintillated like a vast opal.”
Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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