Sold for: $22,500

PROVENANCE
Dominion Gallery, Montreal
Barbeau Owen Foundation Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Jacques Barbeau, A Journey with E.J Hughes, 2005, reproduced page 27 and listed page 106
Jacques Barbeau, The E.J. Hughes Album, Volume 1, The Paintings, 1932 – 1991, 2011, reproduced page 8 and listed page 90, catalogue #14

This exquisite, detailed sketch dates to a time when E.J. Hughes had just returned from his service as the first and longest-serving official Canadian war artist of the Second World War, finally demobilized in October 1946. Living with his wife in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, Hughes was able to turn to the local landscape for his subject matter—away from the intense wartime subjects of previous years.

His perspective here, looking down from above, as well as the glimpse of industry in the log booms, foreshadow later coastal landscapes for which the artist would become renowned. Even in this small sketch, most likely done on site, Hughes highlights abundant details, from reflections in the water to the dark, rocky islets and billowing clouds on the horizon. Very soon, Hughes would be awarded the Emily Carr Scholarship and, in the wake of fellow artist Emily Carr, journey up the coast to capture scenes that would begin to establish his stellar reputation as a chronicler of the diverse BC landscape.

Much different in tone and in style, with bright buildings and varicoloured trees, Hughes’s master oil on canvas Cooper’s Cove, Saseenos, B.C. (1952) can be viewed in the Barbeau–Owen Gallery at Whistler’s Audain Art Museum.

Collector Jacques Barbeau said his interest in the art of Hughes was first sparked when he saw one of the artist’s paintings reproduced on the front cover of a 1958 Vancouver telephone directory. More than a decade later, in 1969, Barbeau acquired his first work by Hughes after paying a visit to the Dominion Gallery in Montreal, which had represented Hughes since 1951. Barbeau purchased several “cartoons,” the detailed graphite drawings that the artist, a meticulous draughtsman, would prepare leading up to an oil painting. Over the years, as Hughes transitioned from oils to acrylics and watercolours, the collection of Barbeau and his wife Margaret Ann (née Owen) grew to 80 works, encompassing sketches, prints and paintings from all phases of the artist’s lengthy career. Fifteen masterpieces from this prominent collection have been on loan to the Audain Art Museum in Whistler since 2016, on public display in the Barbeau–Owen Gallery.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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