Sold for: $52,250

PROVENANCE
Acquired from Dominion Gallery, Montreal by the present Private Collection, Quebec, circa 1978

E.J. Hughes was already well known for his stunning West Coast landscapes when in 1956, sponsored by Vancouver art collector Doreen Norton, he took his first sketching trip to the British Columbia interior. Hughes was greatly impressed by the magnificent views he saw there. In 1958, supported by a Canada Council fellowship, he returned to the Okanagan and to the area northeast of the Okanagan Valley. A second Canada Council grant in 1963 facilitated further travels in BC. On these trips he made detailed graphite sketches that he later used to work up watercolours and oils in his studio at Shawnigan Lake, on Vancouver Island. This fine watercolour with its stunning panoramic view of Lytton, on the Fraser River in south-central BC, shows Hughes’s mastery of composition. The foreground is a realistic view of the edge of town, showing Hughes’s characteristic meticulous attention to detail in its small structures and the evidence of everyday activities, such as the truck and storage silos. Then the viewer’s eye is pulled out into the “beautiful BC” scene – the powerful Fraser River flowing through the banks and cliffs of the surrounding hills, and the mountains beyond. On the right, a road curves upward into the distance towards the final element of the lofty view - an arching, expansive sky with floating clouds.

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