1916 - 2017
Canadian
Northern Lake Nostalgia
oil on canvas
signed and on verso signed, dated June 1944 and inscribed "Northern Lake - Lake Victoria (and the Merry Widow Mountain) is nestled high up behind Port Alice; which is very far north on Vancouver Island, in Neroutsos Inlet." on a label
13 3/4 x 16 3/4 in, 34.9 x 42.5 cm
Estimate: $2,000 - $3,000 CAD
Sold for: $2,000
Preview at:
PROVENANCE
Collection of Unity Bainbridge
By descent to the collection of Deborah and Richard Ryan, West Vancouver
EXHIBITED
Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia Society of Fine Arts 35th Annual Exhibition, May 18 - June 10, 1945
Vancouver Art Gallery, 4th Annual B.C. Artists Summer Exhibition, July 3 - August 26, 1945
West Vancouver Ferry Building Gallery, Beauty is all there is, October 24 - November 5, 2017
Born in Victoria in 1916, Unity Bainbridge was one of the early graduates of the Vancouver School of Art, class of 1936. She was classmates with E.J. Hughes, and her instructors included Fred Varley, Jock Macdonald and Charles Scott from whom she learned her lifelong practice of painting directly from life, favouring an unfiltered direct relationship with her subject. Determined to be an artist, she would take the bus from Whytecliffe in West Vancouver to Ambleside and then the ferry to Downtown Vancouver every morning for class.
In the spirit of Emily Carr, Bainbridge would set off across British Columbia and Canada with little money and her backpack of art supplies, staying in rooming houses while painting the people and its landscapes along the way. Gregarious and willful, she would get to know her subjects personally, and maintained lifelong connections with the people of the Squamish First Nation. The subject of this painting is of Victoria Lake, located on northern Vancouver Island in the remote Neroutsos Inlet behind Port Alice. Here Bainbridge captures the isolated atmosphere of the lake with the solitary tree and the brooding snow capped peaks of Merry Widow Mountain in the background. Many years later, while reflecting on this painting and her experience, she added nostalgia to the title.
Bainbridge had little interest in playing “the art game” as she called it, repeatedly turning down gallery representation which she felt would hinder her freedom of artistic expression. Invited to speak at the 75th anniversary celebration of Emily Carr University, Bainbridge recounted her formative lessons at the school “Art is life and life is art… We were taught to live, not to earn a living. To put beauty and excellence first before money and still survive”. Despite her free spirited convictions her art was exhibited widely in galleries from the early thirties to the present day including a solo show at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1943. Her work is held in the permanent collections of Buckingham Palace, Canada House, Imperial War Museum, the Diefenbaker Museum, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Her influence was recognized when in 1993 she received the Province’s highest honour, the Order of British Columbia. Her work continues to be exhibited, including in the recent show at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Rapture, Rhythm and the Tree of Life: Emily Carr and her Female Contemporaries (2019-2021).
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