Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park
76.8 cms x 91.4 cms (30.25 ins x 36 ins)
Signed and on verso titled on the stretcher and on the laing galleries label
Lot offered for sale by Heffel, Vancouver at the auction event "Spring 2009 Live auction" held on Wed, Jun 17, 2009.
Lot 121
Lot 121
Estimate: CAD $40,000 - $60,000
Realised: CAD $222,300
Realised: CAD $222,300
Lot description - from the online catalogue*
Provenance:
Laing Galleries, Toronto
Private Collection, Muskoka, circa 1940
Private Collection, Toronto, 1962
Private Collection, Toronto
Literature:
Graham McInnes, A Short History of Canadian Art, 1939, page 54
Dorothy Farr, J.W. Beatty 1869 - 1941, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 1981, page 24
Notes:
John Beatty's depiction of Canoe Lake is a serene masterwork. The warmth of palette, the gentle light, and the dappled wind-on-water effect in the foreground show us Beatty at his best. Elected to the RCA in 1903, Beatty never left his academic training behind. His perfect division of the canvas, classic breaking up of the distant shore, and subtle touch of the little red canoe that slides effortlessly through the still waters of the lake, create a scene of harmony and peace. These are the techniques that the Group of Seven would master and exploit fully; techniques that Beatty used to perfection in his depiction of the Canadian wilderness.
The annals of Canadian art history rarely do justice to the painters who gave birth to the conditions that saw the Group of Seven form. Beatty, a remarkable painter of wilderness, a gifted teacher and apt student, played a role of incredible importance in this story. Born in Toronto in 1869, Beatty was a child of the new Canadian confederation. In his youth he witnessed landmark events in Canadian history, including the Riel Rebellion and the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He served as a Canadian War Artist in World War I, and studied with some of Canada's most important painters: first with F.M. Bell-Smith at Galbraith's Academy, and then under George A. Reid and William Cruickshank at the Central Ontario School of Art and Design. Almost immediately he began producing Canadian landscapes to critical acclaim. He enrolled in the prestigious Académie Julian in Paris, and would later travel in England, Italy and Spain. While these travels and the scenery he encountered in Europe influenced him and appeared as subjects in his works, upon his return to Canada in 1908 Beatty fully embraced the nationalistic pride that was causing a rift to develop between painters of European scenery and themes, and painters of Canadian scenery and themes. When the National Gallery of Canada purchased A Dutch Peasant in 1909, Beatty wrote to the gallery ".I am a Canadian & would much rather be represented by a Canadian picture." An exchange was arranged for Beatty's magnificent 1910 canvas The Evening Cloud of the Northland.
Success came readily to Beatty; he was a charter member of the Arts and Letters Club which, upon its founding in 1909, was a loud voice for the Canadianization of fine art. It was here, well before the Group of Seven was formed, that the seeds of Canadian artistic nationalism began to firmly take root and grow. Beatty's voice was clear amongst the members. He focused his brush on the Laurentians and sketched in Haliburton and Lake Memphremagog with Lawren Harris in 1909, and with Fred Challener in Conestaga. He sketched in Northern Ontario and the Rockies with T.W. MacLean, and again in the northern Rockies with A.Y. Jackson in 1914. That same year he sketched in Algonquin Park, possibly at Canoe Lake, with Jackson and J.E.H. MacDonald. His works were widely shown and thus a drawing card to the Canadian wilderness for the future members of the Group of Seven. It was at Beatty's suggestion that MacDonald, whom he had known since 1901, first went to the Magnetawan River to sketch.
Beatty's influence runs strongly throughout the formative days of the Group. Jackson wrote of his admiration for him in 1910, and he and MacDonald would later work with Beatty in Algonquin Park. Beatty's influence on Tom Thomson, whom he met about 1913, is likely and many authors have suggested him as Thomson's early stylistic model. The similarities between early works by Thomson and elements of classic Beatty atmosphere and composition are certainly evident. Beatty would later build Thomson's memorial cairn at Canoe Lake in 1917, having been hit hard by Thomson's death. This masterwork, with its location at Canoe Lake where Thomson drowned, makes for a lovely, if perhaps unintentional, homage.
Laing Galleries, Toronto
Private Collection, Muskoka, circa 1940
Private Collection, Toronto, 1962
Private Collection, Toronto
Literature:
Graham McInnes, A Short History of Canadian Art, 1939, page 54
Dorothy Farr, J.W. Beatty 1869 - 1941, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 1981, page 24
Notes:
John Beatty's depiction of Canoe Lake is a serene masterwork. The warmth of palette, the gentle light, and the dappled wind-on-water effect in the foreground show us Beatty at his best. Elected to the RCA in 1903, Beatty never left his academic training behind. His perfect division of the canvas, classic breaking up of the distant shore, and subtle touch of the little red canoe that slides effortlessly through the still waters of the lake, create a scene of harmony and peace. These are the techniques that the Group of Seven would master and exploit fully; techniques that Beatty used to perfection in his depiction of the Canadian wilderness.
The annals of Canadian art history rarely do justice to the painters who gave birth to the conditions that saw the Group of Seven form. Beatty, a remarkable painter of wilderness, a gifted teacher and apt student, played a role of incredible importance in this story. Born in Toronto in 1869, Beatty was a child of the new Canadian confederation. In his youth he witnessed landmark events in Canadian history, including the Riel Rebellion and the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He served as a Canadian War Artist in World War I, and studied with some of Canada's most important painters: first with F.M. Bell-Smith at Galbraith's Academy, and then under George A. Reid and William Cruickshank at the Central Ontario School of Art and Design. Almost immediately he began producing Canadian landscapes to critical acclaim. He enrolled in the prestigious Académie Julian in Paris, and would later travel in England, Italy and Spain. While these travels and the scenery he encountered in Europe influenced him and appeared as subjects in his works, upon his return to Canada in 1908 Beatty fully embraced the nationalistic pride that was causing a rift to develop between painters of European scenery and themes, and painters of Canadian scenery and themes. When the National Gallery of Canada purchased A Dutch Peasant in 1909, Beatty wrote to the gallery ".I am a Canadian & would much rather be represented by a Canadian picture." An exchange was arranged for Beatty's magnificent 1910 canvas The Evening Cloud of the Northland.
Success came readily to Beatty; he was a charter member of the Arts and Letters Club which, upon its founding in 1909, was a loud voice for the Canadianization of fine art. It was here, well before the Group of Seven was formed, that the seeds of Canadian artistic nationalism began to firmly take root and grow. Beatty's voice was clear amongst the members. He focused his brush on the Laurentians and sketched in Haliburton and Lake Memphremagog with Lawren Harris in 1909, and with Fred Challener in Conestaga. He sketched in Northern Ontario and the Rockies with T.W. MacLean, and again in the northern Rockies with A.Y. Jackson in 1914. That same year he sketched in Algonquin Park, possibly at Canoe Lake, with Jackson and J.E.H. MacDonald. His works were widely shown and thus a drawing card to the Canadian wilderness for the future members of the Group of Seven. It was at Beatty's suggestion that MacDonald, whom he had known since 1901, first went to the Magnetawan River to sketch.
Beatty's influence runs strongly throughout the formative days of the Group. Jackson wrote of his admiration for him in 1910, and he and MacDonald would later work with Beatty in Algonquin Park. Beatty's influence on Tom Thomson, whom he met about 1913, is likely and many authors have suggested him as Thomson's early stylistic model. The similarities between early works by Thomson and elements of classic Beatty atmosphere and composition are certainly evident. Beatty would later build Thomson's memorial cairn at Canoe Lake in 1917, having been hit hard by Thomson's death. This masterwork, with its location at Canoe Lake where Thomson drowned, makes for a lovely, if perhaps unintentional, homage.
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.