PROVENANCE
Collection of Harold and Lillian Sumberg, Toronto
Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Christopher Varley, F.H. Varley: A Centennial Exhibition, The Edmonton Art Gallery, 1981, page 114, reproduced page 128
Peter Varley, Frederick H. Varley, 1983, page 114

EXHIBITED
The Edmonton Art Gallery, F.H. Varley: A Centennial Exhibition, October 16 - December 6, 1981, traveling in 1982 to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, catalogue #140

Frederick Varley moved to Vancouver in 1926 to take a teaching position at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts. During this time, Varley painted on weekends and holidays at Garibaldi and on the North Shore mountains. As with his fellow Group of Seven painters, Varley was an outdoorsman, undeterred by the hardships of hiking and camping. In 1933 he and fellow painter Jock Macdonald founded the British Columbia College of Arts, which, although successful in attracting students, collapsed financially in the spring of 1935. Although this left Varley in difficult financial straits, he was free to paint – and he moved in this same year to a small house in Lynn Valley on the North Shore below Mt. Seymour. While in Lynn Valley during these years, as Christopher Varley relates, his natural surroundings “enchanted him”, and he did some extraordinary paintings while there. The Edmonton Art Gallery catalogue assigned a circa date from this time period to this work of 1935 to 1937, due to its vivid nature.

This striking work radiates vitality. Vigorous brush-strokes depict the swirling clouds and rugged mountain forms which surround the mountain climbers. At first glance the viewer’s eye is drawn to the natural greens, browns and blues of the mountains - then luscious colours such as pale blue, mauve, pink, teal reveal themselves. Above, the blue sky has broken through the clouds, and Varley indicates the brightness of the light by the shadow cast by one of the climbers. Varley communicated his passion for his natural surroundings when he stated “British Columbia is heaven...It trembles within me and pains me with its wonder as when a child I first awakened to the song of the earth...”, and in Mountain Climbers, he makes us feel the wonder of being among the mountaintops.

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