Sold for: $99,450

PROVENANCE
The Art Emporium, Vancouver, 1976
Private Collection, Vancouver
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 15, 2013, lot 112
Private Collection, British Columbia

Purchased at Heffel's Spring 2013 auction for $99,450 including Buyer's Premium
Estimate was $50,000 - $70,000

Having worked for Grip Ltd. and then Sampson Matthews Limited as a designer for many years, Group of Seven painter A.J. Casson had a fine eye for discerning patterning in the landscape and attaining a fine compositional balance, qualities fully manifest in Summer Landscape. Casson worked with a number of styles, one of which related to Cubism in that a landscape element would be fractured into planes – as seen here in the clouds. In Summer Landscape, Casson first anchors the foreground with the large rock to the left edged by forest. He then pulls the eye down the lake along the shoreline out to the horizon and into an extraordinary space - an ephemeral effect created by the cloudscape of jagged layers – which, together with the reflection in the still surface of the lake, produce an otherworldly effect. The bluish zone at the horizon between the land forms takes the viewer into the far distance. Pale pearlescent tones in the water and clouds add to the sense of lightness and mood of transcendence in this beautiful and ethereal scene.

The proceeds from this lot will be donated by the consignor to establish a bursary for students in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars