FALLS NEAR THE ICEFIELDS

watercolour on paper

13.5 x 21 in. (34.3 x 53.3 cm)

Price Realized:

18720.00 CAD.

INCLUDES BUYER’S PREMIUM

Notes:

signed & dated; titled on gallery label verso
Provenance: Canadian Art Galleries, Calgary, AB

Walter Phillips first painted in the Rocky Mountains in 1926. He returned periodically, with a notable trip in 1936, made for the specific purpose of developing the illustrations for Frederick Niven’s book “Colour in the Canadian Rockies”, published the following year. His time in the Rockies became more regular after 1940, when he was asked to be an instructor at the Banff Summer School – this was the first of twenty summers that Phillips would spend teaching in Banff. In 1946, Phillips decided to build a home in Banff; he and his wife Gladys moved in two years later. With mountain subject matter now close by, and a penchant for hiking and sketching, these would be productive years for his watercolours, which he exhibited whenever possible. Phillips’ watercolours from the Banff years include scenes of famous peaks, mountain roads, lakes and creeks, glaciers, and of course, waterfalls. Waterfalls were a favourite subject of Phillips, with a number of examples illustrated in “The Tranquility and the Turbulence, The Life and Work of W. J. Phillips” (Boulet; M. B. Loates Publishing Ltd.; 1981): p. 121 “The Falls on the Way to Lake Oesa” (1936); p. 146 “Rainbow Falls” (1938); p. 210 “Waterfall, Johnson’s Canyon” (1946); p. 212 “Wapta Falls” (1949). On the subject, Phillips says:

I like waterfalls. I can’t help it. Everytime I stand before a presentable waterfall I echo the words old Richard Wilson addressed to the falls of Temi: ‘Well done, water, by God!’ I am willing to admit that when I set out on a sketching ramble with my pack on my back, and hope in my heart – that hope is best satisfied when I find a good waterfall. Such a find is worth a long journey.

Water is the most expressive element in nature. It responds to every mood from tranquility to turbulence…The artist who paints moving water successfully arranges his lines and masses rhythmically so that ripples and waves seem wet, limpid and lively. What he paints is not a replica of the scene before him – not a series of portraits of individual ripples, but a pattern representing an epitome of the whole movement. (p. 201)