Sold for: $64,350

PROVENANCE
The Right Honourable Malcolm MacDonald, Kent, England, British High Commissioner to Canada from 1941 to 1946
By descent to a Private Collection, Toronto
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 15, 2013, lot 107
Private Collection, British Columbia

Purchased at Heffel's Spring 2013 auction for $64,350 including Buyer's Premium
Estimate was $50,000 - $70,000

To reach Lake O’Hara, J.E.H. MacDonald would have taken the train from Toronto to Hector Station in British Columbia, at the southeast end of Wapta Lake. From there, he would have gone by packhorse to Lake O’Hara. In some years he had sufficient overlay time to take out his sketching kit, and in 1929 he had enough time explore the valley leading towards Sherbrooke Lake. This hitherto unknown sketch allows us to pinpoint another spot on the map of MacDonald’s mountain travels, and is one of less than ten known mountain sketches done outside of Lake O’Hara proper. Here, we are a distance up the trail towards Sherbrooke Lake, looking back at the glaciated peaks of Mounts Collier, Victoria and Huber. Set in a burned-over forest, the blackened tree trunks are a striking contrast to the autumn colours of the forest floor. A pine tree on the left is touched with bright yellow lichen, and the bands of turquoise in the sky serve to contain our gaze and return it to the centre of the scene.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars