PROVENANCE
La collection du Reader’s Digest
Beaux-arts canadiens, Maison de vente aux enchères Heffel, 25 novembre 2005, lot 137
Collection privée, Toronto

BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Hughes de Jouvancourt, Marc-Aurèle Fortin, 1980, page 46, oeuvre similaire reproduite pages 51 et 132

St-Siméon is a town on the St. Lawrence River, in Charlevoix County, Quebec. Fortin, whether based in Montreal or Sainte-Rose, wandered the Quebec countryside that he so loved to paint. Fortin was rather eccentric, and as Jouvancourt recounts, “To travel the roads of the province, Fortin used his old bicycle. He would pedal along slowly, stopping off to paint or filch fruit or vegetables that would assuage his hunger. For long trips to Charlevoix or Lac Saint-Jean, he took the bus or sought a lift in a friend’s car. He said he was penniless. He would sleep anywhere...”. Jouvancourt also comments that from about 1935, for about six years, Fortin painted many watercolours, “for which his favourite subjects were Baie Saint-Paul, the Gaspé Peninsula, Lac Saint-Jean, Charlevoix and of course, Sainte-Rose.” In this interesting composition, the scene descends over rolling hills into the town at the water’s edge, building up concentrated layers of houses. Fortin was interested in the pattern the roof peaks made against each other and against the open expanse of hills, water and sky beyond. A similar watercolour from 1942, Landscape at St. Siméon, is in the collection of the Musée de Québec.

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