Sold for: $40,250

PROVENANCE
Alex Fraser Galleries, Vancouver
Private Collection, Toronto
By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Naomi Jackson Groves, A.Y.’s Canada, 1968, page 70

Baie-Saint-Paul was located at the beginning of two “artist trails” running north and east on Quebec’s North Shore, one closer to the St. Lawrence River, the other running inland. Quebec villages and countryside were at the heart of A.Y. Jackson’s most beloved subject matter – he understood the land and its people intimately. He took late winter – early spring sketching trips to the North Shore often during the 1920s, regularly with other artists, and he was documented as painting in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1923 and 1924. This fresh, on-the-spot sketch is an outstanding example of his work. Jackson builds the structure of the town, backed against the lower slopes of a Laurentian mountain, with fluid brushwork. He leaves the foreground clear of all but snow, accented by exquisite hues of pastel blue, pink and ivory, and seizes the eye with the red doors of the house on the right. The artist’s broad horizontal brush-strokes reveal strips of bare board, which define the layers of snow. Jackson captured the winter light of an overcast day expertly – the purplish sky casts a warm hue on the snowy landscape and village, which glows with an even light. March, Baie St. Paul is an exceptional Group period work, and one of Jackson’s most sought-after subjects.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars