Drying Herring Roe
71.8 cms x 81.3 cms (28.25 ins x 32 ins)
Signed and dated 1938 lower right. Signed and titled on the stretcher bar on the reverse
made in 1938
Lot offered for sale by Cowley Abbott, Toronto at the auction event "Artwork from an Important Private Collection" held on Thu, Dec 1, 2022.
Lot 41537
Lot 41537
Estimate: CAD $50,000 - $70,000
Realised: CAD $408,000
Realised: CAD $408,000
Lot description - from the online catalogue*
Provenance:
The Artist
International Machines Corporation, circa 1940
Paul Duval, Toronto
R.G. Cole, Hamilton
Christie’s, auction, Montreal, 23 October 1975, lot 100
McCready Gallery, Toronto
Acquired by the present Private Collection, November 1975
Exhibitions:
"A Century of Canadian Art", Tate Gallery, London, 14 October–31 December 1938, no. 148
"Jock Macdonald: The Inner Landscape, A Retrospective Exhibition", Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; travelling to the Art Gallery of Windsor; The Edmonton Art Gallery; The Winnipeg Art Gallery; Vancouver Art Gallery, 4 April 1981–March 1982, no. 18
"Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection", Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; travelling to Musée du Québec, Quebec City; Vancouver Art Gallery; Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, 14 May 1988‒7 May 1989, no. 92
"The Informing Spirit: Art of the American Southwest and West Coast Canada, 1925–1945", McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg; travelling to Vancouver Art Gallery; Colorado Springs Fine Art Center; Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina, 30 January 1994–26 March 1995, no. 72
"Jock Macdonald and F.H. Varley, Friends", 1 April–27 June 2004
"Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form", Vancouver Art Gallery; travelling to The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 18 October 2014–7 September 2015
"Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven", Vancouver Art Gallery; travelling to Glenbow Museum, Calgary; Art Gallery of Hamilton, 30 October 2015–25 September 2016
Literature:
"A Century of Canadian Art", Tate Gallery, London, 14 October–31 December, 1938, no. 148, unpaginated, reproduced
Christie's, auction, Montreal, 23 October 1975, lot 100, reproduced page 48 as "Drying the Herrings in Indian Village"
Joyce Zemans, "Jock Macdonald: The Inner Landscape, A Retrospective Exhibition", Toronto, 1981, reproduced page 79
Joyce Zemans, "Jock Macdonald", Ottawa, 1985, plate 15, page 45 Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection, Toronto, 1988, no. 92, reproduced page 83
Megan Bice and Sharyn Udall, "The Informing Spirit: Art of the American Southwest and West Coast Canada, 1925–1945", Kleinburg/Colorado Springs, 1994, listed page 175, reproduced page 157, no. 72
Ian Thom, ‘The Early Work: An Artist Emerges’ in "Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form", Vancouver/London, 2014, reproduced page 27
Ian Thom, et al., "Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven", Vancouver/London, 2015, reproduced page 195
Notes:
Jock Macdonald was born on May 31, 1897 in Thurso, Scotland. A graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art, Macdonald emigrated to Canada in 1927 to become head of design and instructor in commercial advertising at the newly established Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (now the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design). Inspired by the natural environment, Macdonald and his colleague Frederick Varley, head of drawing, painting, and composition, spent much of their free time on weekends and summer vacations on sketching and camping trips in the Garibaldi Mountains. When the Depression forced severe salary cuts in the art school budget, Macdonald and Varley decided to found the B.C. College of Art. It quickly established a reputation as a centre of new and stimulating ideas in a variety of art forms including music, dance and photography as well as the visual arts. The school operated for two years before declaring bankruptcy, but its influence on the local cultural community of the period is now legendary. Macdonald himself was infected by the exciting ideas fostered at the College and he began experiments in abstraction. He soon found landscape painting in the tradition of his Group of Seven contemporaries too confining whereas abstraction opened up new vistas of expressive freedom. During his twenty years in B.C., Macdonald was active as artist, teacher, exhibitor, and arts organizer. He was a member of the B.C. Society of Artists, with whom he exhibited regularly; a charter member of the Federation of Canadian Artists; and a member of the Vancouver Art Gallery Council for eleven years, serving on its judging, exhibitions and hanging committees, and implementing its popular Saturday morning classes. The Vancouver Art Gallery accorded Macdonald his first one man show in May 1941 and five years later mounted a solo exhibition, of his "automatic" watercolours. Macdonald moved to Toronto in 1947 and became instructor of painting at the Ontario College of Art. In 1953 he was instrumental in the founding of Painters Eleven, a group dedicated to the promotion of abstract art. He wrote later: "In training young students I believe it absolutely necessary that the student be provided a program of study which forces him to observe nature very closely in many diverse directions. After some two years of such study I encourage the student to expand his inner self and begin to expand his personality. I am quite aware that the young student is often intuitively aware of his consciousness of the twentieth century and could create in modern ways but I believe that every student should, first of all, increase his vocabulary of form and colours by observing nature forms and be initiated into the laws of balance and dynamic equilibrium." Jock Macdonald died at the age of 63 on December 3, 1960.
The Artist
International Machines Corporation, circa 1940
Paul Duval, Toronto
R.G. Cole, Hamilton
Christie’s, auction, Montreal, 23 October 1975, lot 100
McCready Gallery, Toronto
Acquired by the present Private Collection, November 1975
Exhibitions:
"A Century of Canadian Art", Tate Gallery, London, 14 October–31 December 1938, no. 148
"Jock Macdonald: The Inner Landscape, A Retrospective Exhibition", Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; travelling to the Art Gallery of Windsor; The Edmonton Art Gallery; The Winnipeg Art Gallery; Vancouver Art Gallery, 4 April 1981–March 1982, no. 18
"Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection", Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; travelling to Musée du Québec, Quebec City; Vancouver Art Gallery; Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, 14 May 1988‒7 May 1989, no. 92
"The Informing Spirit: Art of the American Southwest and West Coast Canada, 1925–1945", McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg; travelling to Vancouver Art Gallery; Colorado Springs Fine Art Center; Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina, 30 January 1994–26 March 1995, no. 72
"Jock Macdonald and F.H. Varley, Friends", 1 April–27 June 2004
"Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form", Vancouver Art Gallery; travelling to The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 18 October 2014–7 September 2015
"Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven", Vancouver Art Gallery; travelling to Glenbow Museum, Calgary; Art Gallery of Hamilton, 30 October 2015–25 September 2016
Literature:
"A Century of Canadian Art", Tate Gallery, London, 14 October–31 December, 1938, no. 148, unpaginated, reproduced
Christie's, auction, Montreal, 23 October 1975, lot 100, reproduced page 48 as "Drying the Herrings in Indian Village"
Joyce Zemans, "Jock Macdonald: The Inner Landscape, A Retrospective Exhibition", Toronto, 1981, reproduced page 79
Joyce Zemans, "Jock Macdonald", Ottawa, 1985, plate 15, page 45 Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection, Toronto, 1988, no. 92, reproduced page 83
Megan Bice and Sharyn Udall, "The Informing Spirit: Art of the American Southwest and West Coast Canada, 1925–1945", Kleinburg/Colorado Springs, 1994, listed page 175, reproduced page 157, no. 72
Ian Thom, ‘The Early Work: An Artist Emerges’ in "Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form", Vancouver/London, 2014, reproduced page 27
Ian Thom, et al., "Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven", Vancouver/London, 2015, reproduced page 195
Notes:
Jock Macdonald was born on May 31, 1897 in Thurso, Scotland. A graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art, Macdonald emigrated to Canada in 1927 to become head of design and instructor in commercial advertising at the newly established Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (now the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design). Inspired by the natural environment, Macdonald and his colleague Frederick Varley, head of drawing, painting, and composition, spent much of their free time on weekends and summer vacations on sketching and camping trips in the Garibaldi Mountains. When the Depression forced severe salary cuts in the art school budget, Macdonald and Varley decided to found the B.C. College of Art. It quickly established a reputation as a centre of new and stimulating ideas in a variety of art forms including music, dance and photography as well as the visual arts. The school operated for two years before declaring bankruptcy, but its influence on the local cultural community of the period is now legendary. Macdonald himself was infected by the exciting ideas fostered at the College and he began experiments in abstraction. He soon found landscape painting in the tradition of his Group of Seven contemporaries too confining whereas abstraction opened up new vistas of expressive freedom. During his twenty years in B.C., Macdonald was active as artist, teacher, exhibitor, and arts organizer. He was a member of the B.C. Society of Artists, with whom he exhibited regularly; a charter member of the Federation of Canadian Artists; and a member of the Vancouver Art Gallery Council for eleven years, serving on its judging, exhibitions and hanging committees, and implementing its popular Saturday morning classes. The Vancouver Art Gallery accorded Macdonald his first one man show in May 1941 and five years later mounted a solo exhibition, of his "automatic" watercolours. Macdonald moved to Toronto in 1947 and became instructor of painting at the Ontario College of Art. In 1953 he was instrumental in the founding of Painters Eleven, a group dedicated to the promotion of abstract art. He wrote later: "In training young students I believe it absolutely necessary that the student be provided a program of study which forces him to observe nature very closely in many diverse directions. After some two years of such study I encourage the student to expand his inner self and begin to expand his personality. I am quite aware that the young student is often intuitively aware of his consciousness of the twentieth century and could create in modern ways but I believe that every student should, first of all, increase his vocabulary of form and colours by observing nature forms and be initiated into the laws of balance and dynamic equilibrium." Jock Macdonald died at the age of 63 on December 3, 1960.
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 Cowley Abbott auction house for permission to use.
(*) Text and/or Image might be subject matter of Copyright. Check with Cowley Abbott auction house for permission to use.