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LOT 119

CAS CGP RCA SAPQ
1906 - 1993
Canadian

The Gorge
oil on board, circa 1937
initialed and on verso titled, inscribed "Summit Circle, Westmount" on a partial label and monogrammed
17 x 17 in, 43.2 x 43.2 cm

Estimate: $40,000 - $60,000 CAD

Preview at:

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the Artist, circa 1940
By descent to the present Private Collection, Montreal

LITERATURE
“Nearly 500 Works at Spring Exhibit,” Gazette (Montreal), March 19, 1937, pages 13 and 17
Esther Trépanier, Marian Dale Scott: Pioneer of Modern Art, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, 2000, reproduced page 27

EXHIBITED
Art Association of Montreal, Annual Spring Exhibition, 1937
Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Quebec City, Marian Dale Scott: Pioneer of Modern Art, April 5 - September 5, 2000, traveling in 2000 - 2003 to Galerie de l'UQÀM, Montreal; Edmonton Art Gallery; Art Gallery of Hamilton; Art Gallery of Windsor; Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; and Winnipeg Art Gallery


Marian Dale Scott was among the most innovative artists of her generation. She trained in her native Montreal and London, England, before returning home to spend a lifetime exploring various styles of painting, always working to perfect her technique. A self-described autodidact, Scott never stopped learning; she read widely and broadly, visited exhibitions, and incorporated ideas from what she had seen and read into her own art.

In the 1930s, her work centred both on city themes—such as staircases, parks and industrial buildings—and on the natural world. The 1940s saw her exploring scientific elements in her paintings—bones, cells and even glands—and in the 1950s, she moved on to imagery inspired by biblical themes. By the end of that decade, she left realism behind, and would paint only abstract works for the rest of her career.

The Gorge was likely inspired by the landscape near Lachute, Quebec, a town named for its waterfall on the North River, where Scott’s family spent summers in the 1930s. A label on verso in her handwriting records the address in Westmount where Scott lived from 1937 to 1940. Modest in size but strong in impact, this painting was shown at the Annual Spring Exhibition of the Art Association of Montreal in 1937. The composition has strong diagonal lines that spread up and out from the cascade of water and bright, sunlit rocks to the surrounding trees on the riverbank. As in all of her works inspired by nature, there is a sense of dynamism, as the water rushes and trees push upward and outward - everything feels alive.


Estimate: $40,000 - $60,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


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