Sold for: $85,250

PROVENANCE
Estate of J.J. Vaughn
Roberts Gallery, Toronto
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. William P. Wilder, Toronto

LITERATURE
Paul Duval, The Tangled Garden: The Art of J.E.H. MacDonald, 1978, page 142

EXHIBITED
Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, J.E.H. MacDonald in Nova Scotia with Lewis and Edith Smith, January 12 - 25 February, 1990, catalogue #22

In July of 1922, J.E.H. MacDonald took a break after his first year of teaching at the Ontario College of Art, traveling to visit his lifelong friend, the artist Lewis Smith, at Petite Rivière, Nova Scotia. He stayed for a month and revived his love of the sea, experienced in England during his youth. MacDonald wrote to his son, Thoreau:

You remember old Walt Whitman’s account of the Long Island Shore? This reminds me of it…The waves have been magnificent the last days, such a thundering crash and roll – the rattle of the pebbles in the backwash of the waves. And the whole place is so solitary, like Crusoe’s coast, so that you almost resent a footprint in the sand…I have been attempting to sketch the waves…Their forms are so variable, the light and colour unapproachable, but they surely make me long to be a marine painter.

In this superb example of his seascapes, MacDonald captures the frothy surge of surf against the rocks, contrasted with fluid curves of sand in the foreground, rendered in creamy tones. Of the sketches MacDonald produced at Petite Rivière, four were worked up into canvases, including Seashore, Nova Scotia, in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

For the biography on Mr. and Mrs. William P. Wilder in PDF format please click here.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars