AAM CGP CSGA CSPWC G7 OSA RCA
1885 - 1969
Canadian
Sketch at Quidi Vidi Near St. John, Newfoundland
oil on board
signed and dated June 1949 and on verso signed, titled and dated on the labels and inscribed variously
12 x 15 7/8 in, 30.5 x 40.3 cm
Estimate: $15,000 - $20,000 CAD
Sold for: $23,750
Preview at:
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Ottawa
Important Canadian Art, Sotheby's Toronto, May 16, 2001, lot 169
Private Collection, Nova Scotia
In June of 1949, Arthur Lismer journeyed through the east coast of Canada, visiting locales in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. It was a region the artist was intimately familiar with and to which he returned often. His relationship with Atlantic Canada began in 1916 when he moved his family from Ontario to Nova Scotia after being appointed principal of Halifax’s Victoria School of Art and Design. Settling in Bedford, a suburb 10 kilometres north of the city, he would remain there for the duration of World War I, producing important works for the War Records Office that are now housed in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
Over the itinerant course of his career as an artist, Lismer is notable for employing a wide variety of aesthetic approaches, from close-cropped shorelines to dramatic open vistas. Here, he successfully splits the difference between those two choices. Focusing on Quidi Vidi’s famously rugged geography and climate, he uses coarse brushwork and a subtly moody palette to evoke an extremely authentic time and place. While the composition is dominated by the rocky foreground and background, he still achieves an effective sense of coastal grandeur with the icy blue-green waves crashing in from the Atlantic.
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