The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street
61 cms x 81.9 cms (24 ins x 32.25 ins)
Signed and on verso certified by cullen inventory #1234
made in 1234
Lot offered for sale by Heffel, Vancouver at the auction event "Fine Canadian Art Fall 2005 Live auction" held on Thu, Nov 24, 2005.
Lot 047
Lot 047
Estimate: CAD $250,000 - $300,000
Realised: CAD $1,495,000
Realised: CAD $1,495,000
Lot description - from the online catalogue*
Provenance:
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal
Mrs. Arthur Drummond, sister-in-law of prominent Montreal Collector Huntly R. Drummond and daughter-in-law of Collector Sir George A. Drummond
Given as a gift to her daughter Helen Henderson in 1923 as a 21st birthday present
By descent to Roma Henderson (nee Dodds), New Brunswick
The Estate of Roma Henderson, New Brunswick
Exhibitions:
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal, First Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings and Pastels by Maurice Cullen, RCA, January 8 - 22, 1923, exhibited as St. Lawrence Street, Main Street, Bird Shop
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Exhibition of Canadian Painting by a Group of Selected Artists, 1935, exhibited as The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street, catalogue #50
Art Gallery of Hamilton, Maurice Cullen 1866 - 1934, 1956, traveling to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, exhibited as The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Main Street, catalogue #64
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Eleven Artists in Montreal 1860 - 1960, 1960, exhibited as The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Main Street, catalogue #69
Literature:
"Artists' Work of High Order. Some Striking Canvases Hung in Montreal's Spring Exhibition", The Gazette, March 10, 1911, page 7
William R. Watson, Maurice Cullen, RCA: A Record of Struggle and Achievement, 1931, page 36
Notes:
The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street is a superb example of Maurice Cullen's great series of urban landscapes, a subject he first painted upon his return to Canada in 1895, and to which he would return periodically over the course of his career. The work's significance is enhanced by virtue of its having been acquired, shortly after its production, by the Drummond family, historically acknowledged for their contribution to art collecting in Montreal. Certainly this city's central position with regard to acquisitions of both Old Master and modern painting between 1880 and 1920 is well-known, a phenomenon that was integrally linked to the fortunes built around the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Most of Montreal's greatest collectors, including Sir William Van Horne, Sir George A. Drummond and Charles R. Hosmer, were connected to the CPR in one way or another. In addition, acquisitions made by collectors such as Drummond and Van Horne surpassed conventional late nineteenth century taste, George Drummond being the first Montrealer to acquire Impressionist paintings, and among the earliest to do so in North America.
Of additional historical significance is the fact that the Bird Shop, pictured with great fidelity in Cullen's painting, was located on the east side of St. Lawrence Street, south of Sherbrooke Street and just above Ontario Street. There it weathered decades of urban expansion, standing its ground (as a pet shop) on "The Main" until its eventual demolition in the late 1980s.
The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence perfectly encapsulates the fluency of Cullen's sumptuous cityscapes, and demonstrates the artist's pictorial synthesis of the light-filled palette of French Impressionism and the silver-grey tonalities he explored in his travels through Brittany and North Africa in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The painting's given date of circa 1920 suggests that it was probably first exhibited in January 1923 at William Watson's Gallery, which was then located at 679 St. Catherine Street West. As such it would have been part of the First Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings and Pastels by Maurice Cullen RCA, a show which would become an eagerly~awaited January event for the next decade or so. It was during this exhibition that Mrs. Arthur Drummond (sister-in-law of prominent Montreal collector Huntly R. Drummond and daughter-in-law of Sir George A. Drummond) purchased The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street as a 21st birthday present for her daughter Helen.
In its subject and painterly concerns, The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street recalls earlier works such as Old Houses, Montreal, 1909 or Cab Stand, circa 1912. These wintry cityscapes portray shops and houses looming large and spectral against dark, gauzy skies. Horses pulling their sleighs through snowy roads, or tethered to cabstands are often pictured, and the dusky twilight is illuminated by dazzling areas of light from the buildings' windows and doorways. Always low-keyed and luminous, the works elicit an enchanting image of a city winterscape. In imbuing the ordinary scene with charismatic appeal, works such as The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street illustrate Cullen's belief that beauty was to be found in the objects and subjects of our environs, and as Watson writes, that it could be "made manifest even to dull eyes by art's strange alchemy."
The tonal harmony Cullen was able to achieve, as well as his uniquely lustrous surfaces would garner considerable public and critical attention by the early twentieth century. A reviewer for The Gazette sums it up thus: "Simple is the scene of this picture.A city cab-rank at twilight in the winter.Within the shelter a warm light gleams, glancing faintly out upon the horses and twinkling over the snow: that is all, but here, nevertheless, is a picture one could live with without ever a fear of satiety." Certainly Maurice Cullen's The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street is a captivating painting that compels our visual attention, and our curiosity, time and time again.
Maurice Galbraith Cullen
RCA 1866 - 1934
Study for The Bird Shop
charcoal and pastel on paper
on verso Certified by Cullen Inventory #2061
4 7/8 x 14 in, 12
A charcoal and pastel on paper Study for the Bird Shop accompanies the painting. Subtle and expressive, the drawing was a gift to Mrs. Henderson by Cullen's stepson Robert Pilot. As Pilot has described, Cullen was a proponent of the preparatory sketch, an enthusiasm for drawing that is supported by his participation in AAM sketching expeditions to places such as Beaupre and North Hatley between 1911 (when he took over the Museum Sketching Class from Edmond Dyonnet) and 1923. This work on paper reminds us of Cullen's great ability to convey the essence of his subject with extraordinary spontaneity and charm.
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal
Mrs. Arthur Drummond, sister-in-law of prominent Montreal Collector Huntly R. Drummond and daughter-in-law of Collector Sir George A. Drummond
Given as a gift to her daughter Helen Henderson in 1923 as a 21st birthday present
By descent to Roma Henderson (nee Dodds), New Brunswick
The Estate of Roma Henderson, New Brunswick
Exhibitions:
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal, First Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings and Pastels by Maurice Cullen, RCA, January 8 - 22, 1923, exhibited as St. Lawrence Street, Main Street, Bird Shop
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Exhibition of Canadian Painting by a Group of Selected Artists, 1935, exhibited as The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street, catalogue #50
Art Gallery of Hamilton, Maurice Cullen 1866 - 1934, 1956, traveling to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, exhibited as The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Main Street, catalogue #64
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Eleven Artists in Montreal 1860 - 1960, 1960, exhibited as The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Main Street, catalogue #69
Literature:
"Artists' Work of High Order. Some Striking Canvases Hung in Montreal's Spring Exhibition", The Gazette, March 10, 1911, page 7
William R. Watson, Maurice Cullen, RCA: A Record of Struggle and Achievement, 1931, page 36
Notes:
The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street is a superb example of Maurice Cullen's great series of urban landscapes, a subject he first painted upon his return to Canada in 1895, and to which he would return periodically over the course of his career. The work's significance is enhanced by virtue of its having been acquired, shortly after its production, by the Drummond family, historically acknowledged for their contribution to art collecting in Montreal. Certainly this city's central position with regard to acquisitions of both Old Master and modern painting between 1880 and 1920 is well-known, a phenomenon that was integrally linked to the fortunes built around the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Most of Montreal's greatest collectors, including Sir William Van Horne, Sir George A. Drummond and Charles R. Hosmer, were connected to the CPR in one way or another. In addition, acquisitions made by collectors such as Drummond and Van Horne surpassed conventional late nineteenth century taste, George Drummond being the first Montrealer to acquire Impressionist paintings, and among the earliest to do so in North America.
Of additional historical significance is the fact that the Bird Shop, pictured with great fidelity in Cullen's painting, was located on the east side of St. Lawrence Street, south of Sherbrooke Street and just above Ontario Street. There it weathered decades of urban expansion, standing its ground (as a pet shop) on "The Main" until its eventual demolition in the late 1980s.
The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence perfectly encapsulates the fluency of Cullen's sumptuous cityscapes, and demonstrates the artist's pictorial synthesis of the light-filled palette of French Impressionism and the silver-grey tonalities he explored in his travels through Brittany and North Africa in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The painting's given date of circa 1920 suggests that it was probably first exhibited in January 1923 at William Watson's Gallery, which was then located at 679 St. Catherine Street West. As such it would have been part of the First Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings and Pastels by Maurice Cullen RCA, a show which would become an eagerly~awaited January event for the next decade or so. It was during this exhibition that Mrs. Arthur Drummond (sister-in-law of prominent Montreal collector Huntly R. Drummond and daughter-in-law of Sir George A. Drummond) purchased The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street as a 21st birthday present for her daughter Helen.
In its subject and painterly concerns, The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street recalls earlier works such as Old Houses, Montreal, 1909 or Cab Stand, circa 1912. These wintry cityscapes portray shops and houses looming large and spectral against dark, gauzy skies. Horses pulling their sleighs through snowy roads, or tethered to cabstands are often pictured, and the dusky twilight is illuminated by dazzling areas of light from the buildings' windows and doorways. Always low-keyed and luminous, the works elicit an enchanting image of a city winterscape. In imbuing the ordinary scene with charismatic appeal, works such as The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street illustrate Cullen's belief that beauty was to be found in the objects and subjects of our environs, and as Watson writes, that it could be "made manifest even to dull eyes by art's strange alchemy."
The tonal harmony Cullen was able to achieve, as well as his uniquely lustrous surfaces would garner considerable public and critical attention by the early twentieth century. A reviewer for The Gazette sums it up thus: "Simple is the scene of this picture.A city cab-rank at twilight in the winter.Within the shelter a warm light gleams, glancing faintly out upon the horses and twinkling over the snow: that is all, but here, nevertheless, is a picture one could live with without ever a fear of satiety." Certainly Maurice Cullen's The Bird Shop, St. Lawrence Street is a captivating painting that compels our visual attention, and our curiosity, time and time again.
Maurice Galbraith Cullen
RCA 1866 - 1934
Study for The Bird Shop
charcoal and pastel on paper
on verso Certified by Cullen Inventory #2061
4 7/8 x 14 in, 12
A charcoal and pastel on paper Study for the Bird Shop accompanies the painting. Subtle and expressive, the drawing was a gift to Mrs. Henderson by Cullen's stepson Robert Pilot. As Pilot has described, Cullen was a proponent of the preparatory sketch, an enthusiasm for drawing that is supported by his participation in AAM sketching expeditions to places such as Beaupre and North Hatley between 1911 (when he took over the Museum Sketching Class from Edmond Dyonnet) and 1923. This work on paper reminds us of Cullen's great ability to convey the essence of his subject with extraordinary spontaneity and charm.
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.