PROVENANCE
Private Estate, Montreal
The Group of Seven & their Contemporaries, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, April 29, 2021, lot 616
Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
The Christian Science Monitor, October 29, 1948, the related 1945 canvas entitled Canmore, Alberta reproduced, unpaginated
A.Y. Jackson, A Painter’s Country: The Autobiography of A.Y. Jackson, 1958, pages 151 and 152
Naomi Jackson Groves, A.Y.’s Canada, 1968, the related 1943 pencil sketch entitled Canmore, Alberta, indicated "reserved for the McMichael Conservation Collection of Art, Kleinburg, Ontario," reproduced page 171 and listed page 239

In the summer of 1943, A.Y. Jackson traveled to Alberta to teach at the University of Alberta's Summer School of Fine Arts in Banff. He continued to travel and teach out west throughout the 1940s and would also paint in surrounding communities.

It is noteworthy that this work is inscribed "J.S. McLean" on verso. James Stanley (J.S.) McLean (1876-1954), was the president of Canada Packers, a well-known philanthropist and one of Canada’s most avid collectors during his time. He collected works from the Group of Seven and other important artists, such as Tom Thomson, David Milne and Emily Carr. Over the years, he built the J.S. McLean Collection of Canadian Art, which hung in the offices of Canada Packers and was the focus of exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada in 1952, and at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1968. McLean purchased many works by Jackson, whom he knew personally. In his autobiography, Jackson wrote that the Cowans, his hosts in the Caribou, stated that McLean was “one of the most delightful persons they had ever known.” The inscription on verso suggests that this work might have been sold to J.S. McLean.

There is a related canvas titled Canmore, Alberta, dated 1945.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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