titled and certified on a label (verso) by Lucile Rodier Gagnon (no. 511)
Provenance: Canadiana House, Calgary, AB (label verso)
Clarence Gagnon was born in a small village in Rural Quebec and began his formal art education under William Brymner at the Montreal Association of Art. Like many Canadian artists of his time, Gagnon travelled to Paris in 1904 to continue his studies. Here, he attended the Academie Julien and became immersed in the artistic community, gaining recognition for his work at the St. Louis Art Exhibition, and at the Salon de la Societe des Artistes Francais. While in Paris, Gagnon painted with James Wilson Morrice and became influenced by his plein-air sketching techniques. Upon his return to Quebec in 1908, he settled in Baie-St-Paul along the St. Lawrence River, though he would go on to spend much of his life living and working in France.
It is in the Laurentians where he produced most of his plein-air sketches, that he often used back in his studios to develop larger canvases. Gagnon’s affection for his homeland was evident in his work regardless of whether he was in Quebec or overseas. Where his contemporaries of the Group of Seven became known for their often bold, rugged depictions of Canadian wilderness, Gagnon’s contribution to the national art of Canada was in his more cultured and idyllic scenes which celebrated rural Quebec and the French-Canadian way of life.
