PROVENANCE
Roberts Gallery, Toronto
Huberta’s Antiques, Montreal
Corporate Collection, Calgary

After having first painted in the Rockies a decade before, A.Y. Jackson returned to the area in 1924, this time alongside Lawren Harris. The two would spend several weeks exploring the abundant potential subjects that Jasper National Park had to offer, including the Tonquin Valley, the subject of this bright and vibrant sketch. Looking northwest from one of the slopes near Maccarib Pass, Jackson has deftly captured the dramatic northern end of the Ramparts, including Turret Mountain, Mount Geikie and Barbican Peak. This mountain range was a subject that he and Harris had hoped to use for a collaborative mural for either a Canadian National (CN) station or hotel.

While the aspirations of a large mural were never realized, Jackson did contribute artwork to a 1927 promotional booklet for Jasper produced by CN. In it, the Ramparts are described dramatically as follows:

Springing abruptly four thousand feet from the floor of Tonquin Valley, their base guarded by glaciers and enormous rock slides, green ice clutching at their precipitous walls, their lofty summits splintered and rent into countless towers, turrets and pinnacles, rise the wildly picturesque peaks known as The Ramparts. Towering darkly, one behind the other, like ruined medieval fortresses, their crests form part of the Continental watershed.[1]

The subject is an impressive one, and Jackson’s depiction in this vibrant sketch, though not at the same scale as a mural, is an inspired representation of such majesty and grand beauty.

1. Canadian National Railways, Jasper National Park, 1927, 19, https://streamlinermemories.info/CAN/CN27Jasper.pdf.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars