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LOT 105

CGP CSGA CSPWC
1882 - 1953
Canadian

Gay Fabric
watercolour on paper, 1914
on verso titled by Patsy Milne and inscribed "273 C" by the Duncan Estate
18 x 17 3/8 in, 45.7 x 44.1 cm

Estimate: $60,000 - $80,000 CAD

Sold for: $181,250

Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave

PROVENANCE
Estate of the Artist
Acquired from the above by a Private Collection, Toronto, 1976
Canadian Art, Joyner Fine Art, December 7, 1999, lot 51
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
David P. Silcox, Painting Place: The Life and Work of David B. Milne, 1996, pages 48, 49 and 60
David Milne Jr. and David P. Silcox, David B. Milne: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume 1: 1882 - 1928, 1998, reproduced page 126, catalogue #105.99


Born in Bruce County, Ontario, David Milne ambitiously enrolled at the Art Students League of New York in 1903, at age 21. When he left the school in 1906, he stayed on in the city, working as an illustrator. By 1909 he had committed to being a painter, and he progressed rapidly. Milne lived in New York City until 1916, and it was a tremendously creative time for him.

In the summer of 1914, Milne and his wife Patsy took a summer holiday in West Saugerties, north of New York, where this work was executed. Milne’s work at this time was innovative and accomplished. He had absorbed influences from the early-twentieth-century School of Paris – Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Fauvism. Milne wrote that at Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 gallery in Manhattan, “we met Cezanne, van Gogh, Gaugin, Matisse, Brancusi. For the first time, we saw courage and imagination bare, not sweetened by sentiment and smothered in technical skill.”

Milne exhibited five paintings in the prestigious Armory Show of 1913 in New York, in the company of works by the international avant-garde of the day, such as Paul Cézanne, Édouard Vuillard and Henri Matisse. The latter’s influence on Milne seems clear – especially his interior portraits of Madame Matisse. David Silcox related, “In later years Milne said that one might see a painting like Matisse’s The Red Studio for just a second, through a crack in a door, and be influenced for one’s whole life.”

Milne had become a master of watercolour. By 1914, he was showing regularly with the New York Water Color Club, the American Water Color Society and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, among others. His work received critical acclaim – his paintings in the 1914 New York Water Color Club exhibition were praised by critics, including a reviewer in the New York Times. One newspaper wrote: “Mr. Milne does his work as much with white spaces as with spots of color, and his work is so systematic that the word schematic comes into your mind…but…he governs his scheme instead of being governed by it, and his work is always brilliant and beautiful.”

In Gay Fabric, the sitter is Milne’s wife Patsy, whom he married in 1912; she appears often in his work around this date. There is a strong contrast between the energetic, riotous colour of the watercolour and the meditative pose of the sitter reading her book. As in Matisse’s work The Red Studio, the objects in the painting hover against the green and black colour-field zones. Milne defines his forms by coloured outlines. For instance, he sketches in the parameters of the couch with a blue outline, loosely defining its substance by circles and marks, which create a diffuse pattern. This effect serves to push forward the dark form of the sitter, with her velvety black dress and cobalt shawl. Milne joins her to the background table by making her skin the same hue of orange brown, and tethers her feet spatially to the floor by strokes of black. In spite of this, the predominant impression is that the sitter is hovering, due to the two-dimensional rendering of the couch. The artist leaves slivers of white paper showing throughout, creating a patterning that pulls the eye to the surface. Along with other pale areas like the book and the top of the couch, these slivers of white bring light into the watercolour. In all of this, Milne shows his highly sophisticated understanding of spatial effects.

In Gay Fabric, Milne’s visual awareness and intelligence is arresting. The artist emancipates his subject from the specificity of a personal portrait into the universality of a modernist painting that is about colour, light and space.


Estimate: $60,000 - $80,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information posted, errors and omissions may occur. All bids are subject to our Terms and Conditions of Business. Bidders must ensure they have satisfied themselves with the condition of the Lot prior to bidding. Condition reports are available upon request.