Go Home Bay, a scenic part of Georgian Bay’s Muskoka District, is renowned in the history of Canadian art. It was here, in early fall 1913, that A.Y. Jackson first met his future patron, the ophthalmologist James MacCallum. The doctor had received a letter from Lawren Harris advising of Jackson’s presence in the area, and MacCallum went looking for the young artist from Montreal.

On September 21, MacCallum located Jackson at his “bathing shack” on Portage Island. Jackson described the meeting in his autobiography: "He wanted to see the work I was doing. I showed him, and he liked it. Then he inspected the shack, pronounced it rather draughty, asked how long I was staying, and when I told him till the end of October, he said he would send someone to take me to his place at Go Home Bay where I could live in a comfortable house." Besides use of his cottage, MacCallum offered Jackson space in the Studio Building being constructed in Toronto and guaranteed his expenses for a year. This fortuitous meeting changed the course of Jackson’s career, who at a time he was considering a move to the US, and was an antecedent to the formation, seven years later, of the Group of Seven.

Georgian Bay became a favourite painting place for Jackson throughout his career. This serene oil sketch from 1962, with its sun-baked rocks and aquamarine waters, conveys the artist’s deep familiarity with the region’s rocky shores, water views, and atmospheric skies.

This work is accompanied by a signed letter from the artist to the present owner when she was a child in 1962.