October
76.2 cms x 66.7 cms (30 ins x 26.25 ins)
Signed and on verso titled on the remnants of the rca label
Lot offered for sale by Heffel, Vancouver at the auction event "Fine Canadian Art Fall 2006 Live auction" held on Fri, Nov 24, 2006.
Lot 022
Lot 022
Estimate: CAD $80,000 - $100,000
Realised: CAD $92,000
Realised: CAD $92,000
Lot description - from the online catalogue*
Provenance:
Private Collection, Montreal
Exhibitions:
Art Association of Montreal, 42nd Annual RCA Exhibition, November 18, 1920, catalogue #224
Notes:
October is an outstanding work which encapsulates the visual innovativeness and vitality that marked the artist's early practice. Thematically eclectic, her works of this period ranged from portraits and peopled city scenes to the empty landscapes that she would embrace almost exclusively from the twenties onwards. Beyond the narrative charm and whimsical allure of its subject, October persuasively articulates Savage's progressive pictorial interests. The stylized lyricism and succinctness of her forms, the near~decorous patterning of the compositional elements and the luminous naturalism of her palette, all point to a North American fusion of late Impressionist and Post~Impressionist concerns.
Certainly by the late teens Savage was cognizant of the artistic advancements of her day. Her studies with William Brymner and Maurice Cullen at the Art Association of Montreal from 1914 to 1919, followed by a year at the Minneapolis School of Design, as well as her work as a medical artist in military hospitals in Montreal, Toronto and Minneapolis in 1919 and 1920, had not only honed her artistic acumen, but had also significantly influenced her stylistic direction. Her participation in the AAM and RCA annual exhibitions commencing in 1917 and 1918 respectively, marked her entry into the professional public sphere. Her works would be included in such internationally noteworthy shows as the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley, England in 1924 and 1925, the annual National Gallery Exhibitions of Canadian Art commencing in 1926, and A Century of Canadian Art at the Tate Gallery in London in 1938, to name only a few. Moreover, her association with Montreal's Beaver Hall Group and later with the Canadian Group of Painters further fuelled her purpose as a serious artist. Indeed, Savage was smitten by art the length of her life, and while she would become recognized principally for her role as an art educator, her commitment to Canadian painting and to the production of a national imagistic identity was profound and prevailing.
In many ways October is a pivotal piece which may be positioned at the threshold of Savage's engagement with Canadian modernism. It may be twinned with a second (possibly the same) painting entitled In the Park which was included in the inaugural exhibition of the Beaver Hall Group in January 1921, and which was singled out for mention by Montreal's Gazette on that occasion. Its blithe depiction of children out with their governess in an idyllic park setting (quite likely Westmount Park, which was situated not far from the artist's family home on Highland Avenue) tells of the lingering influence of a post~Edwardian feminine aesthetic with its focus on spaces of domesticity and sentiment. This long~entrenched sensibility would swiftly give way at the end of the First World War, both in Savage's oeuvre and in that of numerous other Montreal women artists to the adoption of a more modernist~inspired landscape genre: committed to a pan~Canadian nationalism, influenced by Post~Impressionism and Art Nouveau, and driven by A.Y. Jackson and the Group of Seven.
In its expressive pictorial poetics, October clearly anticipates the later landscapes Savage executed in the resonant, abstracted design style that has come to define her best work. Here, sinuous trees soar up to the wind~swept, sun~streaked sky that dominates most of the composition, thus relegating the figures below to near~motif status. The painting is imbued with a compelling sense of nature ~ luminous, evocative and expansive ~ belying the general flattening of the surface plane and the painting's essentially urban theme. October exemplifies Anne Savage's greatest forté, which was to impart a sense of lyricism and largesse to an otherwise prosaic subject. It is a work which stands as a major example of the unique visual voice of one of Montreal's vital women artists of the early twentieth century.
We thank Karen Antaki, Montreal art historian, for contributing the above essay.
Private Collection, Montreal
Exhibitions:
Art Association of Montreal, 42nd Annual RCA Exhibition, November 18, 1920, catalogue #224
Notes:
October is an outstanding work which encapsulates the visual innovativeness and vitality that marked the artist's early practice. Thematically eclectic, her works of this period ranged from portraits and peopled city scenes to the empty landscapes that she would embrace almost exclusively from the twenties onwards. Beyond the narrative charm and whimsical allure of its subject, October persuasively articulates Savage's progressive pictorial interests. The stylized lyricism and succinctness of her forms, the near~decorous patterning of the compositional elements and the luminous naturalism of her palette, all point to a North American fusion of late Impressionist and Post~Impressionist concerns.
Certainly by the late teens Savage was cognizant of the artistic advancements of her day. Her studies with William Brymner and Maurice Cullen at the Art Association of Montreal from 1914 to 1919, followed by a year at the Minneapolis School of Design, as well as her work as a medical artist in military hospitals in Montreal, Toronto and Minneapolis in 1919 and 1920, had not only honed her artistic acumen, but had also significantly influenced her stylistic direction. Her participation in the AAM and RCA annual exhibitions commencing in 1917 and 1918 respectively, marked her entry into the professional public sphere. Her works would be included in such internationally noteworthy shows as the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley, England in 1924 and 1925, the annual National Gallery Exhibitions of Canadian Art commencing in 1926, and A Century of Canadian Art at the Tate Gallery in London in 1938, to name only a few. Moreover, her association with Montreal's Beaver Hall Group and later with the Canadian Group of Painters further fuelled her purpose as a serious artist. Indeed, Savage was smitten by art the length of her life, and while she would become recognized principally for her role as an art educator, her commitment to Canadian painting and to the production of a national imagistic identity was profound and prevailing.
In many ways October is a pivotal piece which may be positioned at the threshold of Savage's engagement with Canadian modernism. It may be twinned with a second (possibly the same) painting entitled In the Park which was included in the inaugural exhibition of the Beaver Hall Group in January 1921, and which was singled out for mention by Montreal's Gazette on that occasion. Its blithe depiction of children out with their governess in an idyllic park setting (quite likely Westmount Park, which was situated not far from the artist's family home on Highland Avenue) tells of the lingering influence of a post~Edwardian feminine aesthetic with its focus on spaces of domesticity and sentiment. This long~entrenched sensibility would swiftly give way at the end of the First World War, both in Savage's oeuvre and in that of numerous other Montreal women artists to the adoption of a more modernist~inspired landscape genre: committed to a pan~Canadian nationalism, influenced by Post~Impressionism and Art Nouveau, and driven by A.Y. Jackson and the Group of Seven.
In its expressive pictorial poetics, October clearly anticipates the later landscapes Savage executed in the resonant, abstracted design style that has come to define her best work. Here, sinuous trees soar up to the wind~swept, sun~streaked sky that dominates most of the composition, thus relegating the figures below to near~motif status. The painting is imbued with a compelling sense of nature ~ luminous, evocative and expansive ~ belying the general flattening of the surface plane and the painting's essentially urban theme. October exemplifies Anne Savage's greatest forté, which was to impart a sense of lyricism and largesse to an otherwise prosaic subject. It is a work which stands as a major example of the unique visual voice of one of Montreal's vital women artists of the early twentieth century.
We thank Karen Antaki, Montreal art historian, for contributing the above essay.
Most realised prices include the Buyer's Premium of 18-25%, but not the HST/GST Tax.
(*) Text and/or Image might be subject matter of Copyright. Check with Heffel auction house for permission to use.
(*) Text and/or Image might be subject matter of Copyright. Check with Heffel auction house for permission to use.