BCSFA CGP OC RCA
1913 - 2007
Canadian
Above Maple Bay
oil on canvas
signed and dated 1987 and on verso signed, titled, dated 1987 and inscribed with the Dominion Gallery inventory #B8332 on the gallery label
25 x 32 1/4 in, 63.5 x 81.9 cm
Estimate: $90,000 - $120,000 CAD
Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave
PROVENANCE
Dominion Gallery, Montreal
Masters Gallery Ltd., Calgary
Private Collection, Vancouver
Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 25, 2006, lot 151
Private Collection, Vancouver
Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, June 17, 2009, lot 42
Barbeau Owen Foundation Collection, Vancouver
LITERATURE
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Exhibition, 1987, reproduced
EXHIBITED
Academy House, Toronto, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Exhibition, October 16 – December 30, 1987
In 1987, E.J. Hughes wrote a frame label for Above Maple Bay describing its genesis: “The pencil sketch from nature for this painting was produced at the side of a road in a new subdivision overlooking Maple Bay, Sansum Narrows and Mount Maxwell, which is on Salt Spring Island. The foreground, the point in the middle distance and the mountain on the upper right of the painting are all on Vancouver Island. The orange-trunked trees in the foreground are Arbutus, characteristic of Vancouver Island and the southwest coast of BC.”[1]
The breezy waters of Maple Bay are shown as a scene of human activity, with a fishing boat heading home, pleasure boats coming and going, and sailboats both tacking away and moored near the shore. A pencil drawing that the artist made on location in 1986 (lot 6 in this sale) shows highly resolved trees in the foreground, every branch in place. Hughes intended this study to be “exhibitable,” and subsequently used a separate page to make very detailed notes for colour and tones.
By this time Hughes was mostly using acrylic paints. In a rare interview the artist gave in 1993, published under the title “The Artful Master,” local reporter Peter Rusland explained the reason for the change:
In 1983 Hughes abandoned oil paint for acrylic because fumes from new brands of turpentine gave him chest pains. “There was no problem with the old pure gum spirits,” he said. “With acrylic I get just as good results as with oils but acrylic dries in about 10 or 15 minutes.” The drying time made it difficult to blend colours as effectively as Hughes had done with oil. But acrylic has advantages, he said. “It gives a nice, clear brilliant effect not quite possible with oil.”[2]
That said, Above Maple Bay was actually one of the few paintings the artist created with water-miscible oil paint. Describing his technique, Hughes wrote to his dealer Max Stern on January 13, 1987: “This [work] is done with a new oil paint, ‘Pelikan,’ which can, amazingly, be thinned with water instead of turpentine.… It is very workable, like the old oil paint, but is a bit slower drying.”[3] In fact, the slow drying now annoyed him, and he returned to acrylic after just two paintings.
Regardless of the medium, when Above Maple Bay arrived at the Dominion Gallery in March, Stern wrote to Hughes that he found the painting “extraordinarily good and beautiful!”[4] Later that year Stern loaned it for an exhibition at the opening of the new Royal Canadian Academy of Arts building in Toronto, and it was reproduced in the catalogue.
The subsequent 1993 watercolour of Above Maple Bay was a highlight of Hughes’s exhibition in the village of Shawnigan Lake, on Vancouver Island, in 1994. In his article from that time, Rusland quoted the artist on his feelings regarding painting natural scenes: “I try and find a subject in nature well-balanced and composed,” Hughes said. “I follow my sketches as much as possible now. My aim is to paint something better than a photograph. Artists can add to a piece by thinking about every edge and line. It’s a shame many artists are painting non-objective shapes rather than BC’s beautiful coast.” Hughes concluded: “I do a minimum of changes from nature rather than a maximum as some artists do. How can an artist possibly improve on this beauty? But artists can improve on the feelings you can’t see in photos. Feelings can’t be described mathematically.”[5]
We thank Robert Amos, artist and writer from Victoria, BC, for contributing the above essay. Amos is the official biographer of Hughes and has so far published five books on his work. Building on the archives of Hughes’s friend Pat Salmon, Amos is at work on a catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work.
1. Frame label written by Hughes for Above Maple Bay (1987). A copy of the label is in Special Collections, University of Victoria.
2. Peter Rusland, “The Artful Master,” Cowichan Valley Pictorial (Duncan, BC), February 28, 1993.
3. E.J. Hughes to Max Stern, January 13, 1987, Special Collections, University of Victoria.
4. Max Stern to E.J. Hughes, March 19, 1987, Special Collections, University of Victoria.
5. Quoted in Rusland, “Artful Master.”
For the biography on Jacques Barbeau and Margaret Owen Barbeau in PDF format, please click here.
Estimate: $90,000 - $120,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
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