COPPERMINE COUNTRY

oil on panel

10.5 x 13.5 in. (26.7 x 34.3 cm)

Price Realized:

26325.00 CAD.

INCLUDES BUYER’S PREMIUM

Notes:

signed recto; signed, titled & dated verso
Provenance: Masters Gallery, Calgary, AB; Former collection of Burton Taylor (B.T.) Richardson, Winnipeg, MB – Richardson was a journalist and attaché to John Diefenbaker, and author of “Canada and Mr. Diefenbaker” (1962), published the year that the Prime Minister abandoned his “Northern Vision”.

A. Y. Jackson would travel to the Arctic several times in his life; for the first time in 1927, in the company of Dr. F. G. Banting, aboard the S.S. Beothic; and for the final time in 1965, at the age of 83. The land held a fascination for him. In particular the Coppermine was an area of legend. Jackson had heard tales of the 1900 Camsell-Bell geological expedition to cross overland to the Coppermine. Trapped by a storm, separated from their men, low on provisions and fearful of the local population, the trip was nearly disastrous. In 1950 Jackson would first realize his desire to “get into the Barren Lands” this area north-east of Great Bear Lake. His group picked out their sketching ground from aboard an Eldorado Mines plane, and stayed for a week. Jackson writes in “A Painter’s Country” (p. 184):
“The Barren Lands country was so fascinating that I returned there the following year….It was a lovely country to walk over, with short grass and moss like a carpet, gently rolling hills with occasional rock outcrops and many little lakes.”