PROVENANCE
Milne sale to the Right Honourable Charles Vincent Massey, 1934
Laing Galleries, Toronto, 1958
James Coyne, Governor of the Bank of Canada, Ottawa, 1958
Henry G. Vail, Ottawa, 1958
Laing Galleries, Toronto
Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, Ontario, circa 1972

LITERATURE
David Milne Jr. and David P. Silcox, David B. Milne: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume 2: 1929 – 1952, 1998, reproduced page 585, catalogue #303.41

EXHIBITED
Laing Galleries, Toronto, Paintings in Oil by David Milne, October 4 – 18, 1958, catalogue #33

David Brown Milne’s approach to landscape was the most original by a Canadian artist of the twentieth century. Milne was not afraid to suspend the rules of conventional image-making and, in so doing, produced paintings of both remarkable modernity and profound visual complexity. Tree Stumps, executed at Six Mile Lake in the Muskoka region of Ontario, is a dramatic and complex depiction of rocks and driftwood. The composition leads forcefully across the shore to the rocky edge of the lake and beyond to the dark waters of the lake itself. Milne’s decision to use expressive rather than natural colour gives the image a visual dynamism that is strikingly modern. This is not an easy lakeside image but rather an exciting painting that challenges visual conventions and our expectations. Tree Stumps is a complex painting of a very simple subject—driftwood at the edge of a lake. The painting demands our attention and, if we are willing to give it, richly rewards the viewer.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars