PROVENANCE
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal
Randolph Chute, Paris
By descent to the present Private Collection, USA

EXHIBITED
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal, 1926, catalogue #26

An important Canadian Impressionist, Maurice Cullen was committed to a primary tenet of this movement, that of plein air painting. The result was a freshness and command of atmosphere that made his works truly alive. For every canvas there was a sketch executed outdoors, and the artist sometimes took a canvas outside to finish. Cullen built a cabin around 1922 at Lac Tremblant in the Laurentians so that he could immerse himself in winter, and he became a master of the crystalline atmosphere and colour of this season. Looking closely at The Mountain at Lac Vert, we see a profusion of delicate pastel tints: mauve in the sky, green in the ice, yellow in the sunlit snow and exquisite tones of blue in the snow shadows. Reflections in the ice of dark trees and the mountain add an illusory vertical dimension that contrasts to the horizontal drifts of snow across its surface, and a sun haloed with light adds a scintillating focal point to this stunning scene.

This work was handled by the venerable Montreal dealer William Watson, whose gallery created considerable demand for Cullen's Laurentian landscapes.

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