Pegi Margaret Kathleen Nicol MacLeod

Pegi Nicol MacLeod spent her early years in Ottawa and was acquainted with anthropologist Marius Barbeau, who had traveled to British Columbia’s Skeena River with Edwin Holgate and A.Y. Jackson in 1926. Barbeau encouraged MacLeod, Anne Savage and Florence Wyle to travel to the Skeena and Nass regions to record First Nations totem poles and community houses, as they were fast disappearing. Documentation varies as to whether Barbeau only encouraged MacLeod to go, or actually traveled with her and Wyle. In 1927, MacLeod went west to Alberta, where she painted First Nations subjects – accounts also vary as to whether she reached the Skeena in this year, but all agree on a 1928 trip. Her work was included in the seminal Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art - Native and Modern, organized by Barbeau and director Eric Brown at the National Gallery of Canada late in 1927. In this striking aerial view of the Skeena River, the landforms are treated in a sculpted, semi-abstracted manner. The light is brilliant, and her palette is rich – particularly the milky green of the river. Skeena Landscape is a bold, modern work by this important early Canadian artist.