PROVENANCE
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal
The Art Emporium, Vancouver
Private Collection, Nova Scotia

LITERATURE
Charles C. Hill, Canadian Painting in the Thirties, National Gallery of Canada, 1975, page 27

The north shore of the St. Lawrence River, with its remarkable views of the Laurentian Mountains, was a favourite sketching location for A.Y. Jackson. From the 1920s through the 1940s, Jackson made annual sketching trips to the region to capture the Quebec countryside in its early stages of spring snowmelt. As Charles Hill notes, Jackson was captivated by the transitional phases of nature, “not this bright green of summer, nor the blank whiteness of winter, but the flow of winter to spring or the blaring up of summer into autumn.”

This circa 1948 canvas exemplifies Jackson’s masterful sense of rhythm and his keen sensitivity to the interplay of colour and refracted light on snow. The fluid, lyrical forms reverberate across the undulating, snow-laden terrain to the distant Laurentian hills, uniting the composition in a harmonious, vibrant palette. Iridescent shadows shimmer on the thawing snow, gestural branches stretch skyward, and the dynamic lines of the coursing river evoke the revitalized energy and vitality of a landscape emerging from the grip of a long winter.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars