PROVENANCE
Collection privée, Ottawa
Art canadien important, Sotheby’s Toronto, 16 mai 2001, lot 169
Collection privée, Nouvelle-Écosse

In June of 1949, Arthur Lismer journeyed through the east coast of Canada, visiting locales in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. It was a region the artist was intimately familiar with and to which he returned often. His relationship with Atlantic Canada began in 1916 when he moved his family from Ontario to Nova Scotia after being appointed principal of Halifax’s Victoria School of Art and Design. Settling in Bedford, a suburb 10 kilometres north of the city, he would remain there for the duration of World War I, producing important works for the War Records Office that are now housed in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

Over the itinerant course of his career as an artist, Lismer is notable for employing a wide variety of aesthetic approaches, from close-cropped shorelines to dramatic open vistas. Here, he successfully splits the difference between those two choices. Focusing on Quidi Vidi’s famously rugged geography and climate, he uses coarse brushwork and a subtly moody palette to evoke an extremely authentic time and place. While the composition is dominated by the rocky foreground and background, he still achieves an effective sense of coastal grandeur with the icy blue-green waves crashing in from the Atlantic.

Tous les prix affichés sont en dollars canadiens.

Bien que nous ayons pris soin d’assurer l’exactitude de l’information publiée, des erreurs ou omissions peuvent se produire. Toute enchère est soumise à nos modalités et conditions de vente. Les enchérisseurs doivent s’assurer qu’ils sont satisfaits de la condition du lot avant d’enchérir. Les rapports de condition sont disponibles sur demande.