PROVENANCE
Waston Art Galleries, Montréal
Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montréal
Succession privée, Ontario

It is difficult to overstate the importance of Brittany to modern art. Titans such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and Maurice Denis were seduced by the peninsula’s rich coastal light and Celtic history. In the sphere of Canadian art, Brittany is most famously depicted by J.W. Morrice and Clarence Gagnon, but its impact on artists like Albert Robinson, Emily Carr, A.Y. Jackson and, as seen here, John Young Johnstone, was profound. In Evening Light, Concarneau, Johnstone expresses the flickering, ephemeral effects of light, vividly contrasting in complementary colours the ship’s sails against the Impressionist blues and violets of the water.

Likely produced during his years in Europe in the leadup to World War I, this work showcases a profound engagement with the modernism of the time. Notably, it is painted on a support from the Paris American Art Company, a business also frequented by Jackson during his time in Paris. Collected by the National Gallery of Canada in his lifetime, and exhibiting with Montreal’s Beaver Hall Group in their inaugural show in 1921, Johnstone is an essential, pioneering and often underrecognized figure in Canadian art history.

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