Sold for: $46,800

PROVENANCE
A gift from the Artist to Baron Byng High School, Montreal
The PSBGM Cultural Heritage Foundation

LITERATURE
Anne McDougall, Anne Savage: The Story of a Canadian Painter, 1977, pages 127 and 128

Anne Savage’s career as an art educator had an impact that still resonates today with the students and alumni of Montreal’s Baron Byng High School, where she taught from 1922 until 1948. The school was established in 1921 and notes Mordecai Richler, Irving Layton, Moe Reineblatt and William Shatner among its graduates. Savage was the school’s first art teacher, and during her long tenure there she employed a method of teaching focused on creative stimulus, positive reinforcement and showing complete trust in the innate artistic talents of all her students. Quite ahead of its time, this method produced outstanding results, and Savage soon became a beloved teacher. She oversaw the painting of murals on the school walls by students and arranged for the donation of important works of art by her artistic contemporaries to the school’s collections. Thus, the walls at Baron Byng were graced with a remarkable array of art. From sketches by J.E.H. MacDonald and fine canvases by A.Y. Jackson to a wintry street scene by Robert Wakeham Pilot, Savage built a collection with the eye of an experienced curator and the insight of a gifted educator. As well, she contributed a number of her own works, including Northern Lake / Trees in the Wind.

The view on one side of this double-sided work, entitled Northern Lake, is a depiction of one of Savage’s most treasured vistas. In 1911, her family had purchased a summer property at Lake Wonish, north of Montreal near Sixteen Island Lake. The property was high on a hill above the lake and had a commanding view of the lake’s waters, which could not be seen in their entirety from the home, being partially hidden beneath steep cliffs, with the view running off into the distance. This distant lake has a distinctive shoreline, standing out like a shard of glass in a lush landscape. Savage was extremely fond of this outlook, and painted it often, in both sunlight and twilight like French Impressionist Claude Monet, who painted the same scene again and again. She captured it in all seasons and different times of day, and named it with varying titles. In 1933 she built a studio for herself on this property, at the head of the lake with a view out of her window that gave her an eagle’s overlook onto the landscape. Anne McDougall writes, “The fields between the studio and the water fold into valleys at the foot of elm and maple trees. There is a road running across the end of the fields that turns by a clump of maple trees. Anne found the view satisfying. It contained the elements of rhythm and design that she needed, and was right there in front of her...‘Anne’s Lake’, as her friends called it, so often gave her the inspiration she needed for on-the-spot subject matter. She turned to it again and again.” Her depiction of the lake in this work is both expansive and graceful, with a fine, rolling quality and a serene harmony in both her palette and her brushwork. The shadows and colouring of the elm trees are especially fine.

The verso scene, Trees in the Wind, is equally enchanting. Characteristic of Savage’s style, movement, rhythm and balanced patterns of colour are the main focuses of this lyrical and energetic composition. Savage lined the walls of her studio with mirrors so that she could see the works she was painting in reverse and from various angles while she was working, feeling that these varied perspectives allowed her to compose her paintings more carefully. Indeed, with both Northern Lake and Trees in the Wind, her compositional structure perfectly supports these two delightful works.

Savage was a member of both the Beaver Hall Group and the Canadian Group of Painters. Following her retirement from Baron Byng High School, she supervised the Art Program for The Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal and taught at McGill University.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars