Please note our offices will be closed from Friday March 29 through Monday April 1 for Easter. Local pick-ups will start on Tuesday April 2.
      
      
      

LOT 149

ALC CGP G7 OSA RCA
1873 - 1932
Canadian

Pines, Algonquin Park
oil on panel, circa 1914
on verso signed, titled and inscribed "acquired from Thoreau MacDonald, Thornhill, Ont., May 1950. W. Colgate" and "Certified my father's work. Thoreau MacDonald. Nov. '51"
8 x 10 in, 20.3 x 25.4 cm

Estimate: $20,000 - $30,000 CAD

Sold for: $49,250

Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave

PROVENANCE
Collection of Thoreau MacDonald
Acquired from the above by William Colgate, May 1950
Sold, Pinney's Auctions, September 26, 1989, lot C127
Private Collection, Montreal

LITERATURE
Paul Duval, The Tangled Garden: The Art of J.E.H. MacDonald, 1978, page 83


J.E.H. MacDonald’s first trip to Algonquin Park was in 1914 with J.W. Beatty. They joined A.Y. Jackson, who had already been there for a month, and while there MacDonald produced numerous sketches. MacDonald was friends with artist Tom Thomson, who was famously associated with Algonquin Park, and MacDonald returned to the park in 1917 to assist with the memorial for Thomson, who had died under mysterious circumstances there that year. This is a classic Group of Seven subject – sun raking across snowdrifts in a forest – and MacDonald handled it with great skill and sensitivity. Among the Group members, MacDonald was known as a romantic dreamer and poet. His lines of poetry feel as though they directly apply to this fresh, on-the-spot sketch: “Sunshine and snow, - clear beauty without mar” and [shadows] “Netting with blue the rippled drifts below.”

A sketch by MacDonald with a similar subject entitled Snow, Algonquin Park is in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

It is likely that the former owner of this work, W. Colgate (also referred to in the inscription) is William Colgate, author of Canadian Art: Its Origin and Development, 1943.


Estimate: $20,000 - $30,000 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.