Sold for: $15,000

PROVENANCE
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal
Dominion Gallery, Montreal
Private Collection, Vancouver
Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 17, 2011, lot 168
The Collection of Torben V. Kristiansen, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Hugues de Jouvancourt, Maurice Cullen, 1978, page xvii

The Cache River in the Laurentians was one of Maurice Cullen’s great enduring themes, painted in daylight, sunset and moonlight. Most of his paintings were winter scenes, with banks shrouded in snow and the river’s edges shaped by ice. Hugues de Jouvancourt wrote: “What makes the works of his Laurentian period so moving is the feeling of hidden mystery conveyed by the woods, mountains, lakes and streams. A great goodness seems to inhabit nature as if God, satisfied with the beauty of his work, had suddenly halted his creation.”

In his depictions of winter, Cullen displayed his extraordinary abilities as an Impressionist in his refined handling of light effects and delicate colour tones, captured while painting out of doors. He did not use the French Impressionists’ fractured brush-stroke and fragmentation of colour, instead preferring to use a more solid application of paint. After drawing his outline with a neutral colour, Cullen gradually worked up all the masses of the painting, a process that kept the whole painting in movement until finished. The final effect in The Cache River, November is sparkling and fresh, the quintessence of a winter’s day on the river.

For the biography on Torben V. Kristiansen in PDF format, please click here.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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