Sold for: $46,250

PROVENANCE
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal
Randolph Chute, Paris
By descent to the present Private Collection, USA

LITERATURE
A.Y. Jackson, A Painter’s Country: The Autobiography of A.Y. Jackson, 1958, page 57

During the 1920s, Albert Robinson accompanied Group of Seven painter A.Y. Jackson on some of his sketching trips along the St. Lawrence River. In his autobiography, Jackson wrote of one such trip, “Robinson and I went to Bienville, a small village just below Quebec on the south shore. In March when the snow was melting, when the roads were covered with slush and the ice was going up and down the river with the tides, it was a fascinating place to paint.” Robinson was much admired by other artists, resulting in him being called a “painter’s painter.” It is easy to see why in this exceptional sketch, glowing with his delicate pastel tints in the snow and highlighted by red, orange, purple and a sliver of cobalt in the distant mountain. His finely balanced composition is full of local “colour” – such as the two sleighs in the foreground and the church, whose distinctive spire pierces the panoramic view of the far shore.

The inscription on verso indicates that Robinson must have taken space around this time in the Group’s Studio Building on Severn Street in Toronto.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars