signed & dated
Exhibited: Glenbow, Calgary, AB, “A Passion for Art: Works from Private Collections” (December 3, 1994-January 29, 1995)
Provenance: Masters Gallery, Calgary, AB (label verso)
Cornelius Krieghoff is the best known and most admired of Canada’s early painters. Active before and around Confederation, the Amsterdam-born artist later cultivated a steady market for his romantic landscapes that depicted outdoor life in rural Quebec, the Habitants, local First Nations, and popular sites such as Montmorency Falls. As a genre painter, Krieghoff’s focus was on the everyday, as opposed to the more notable events and people of the period.
In 1853, the artist moved to the old capital of Quebec City where for eleven years he found success, and where many of his wilderness scenes of First Nations life were painted. An inherent part of all these images, as evidenced here in INDIAN ENCAMPMENT, is the grand scale of the environment and the serenity of indigenous life.
