signed, titled & editioned
MBL202
This woodcut is illustrated on p. 139 of “The Tranquility and the Turbulence: The Life and Work of Walter J. Phillips” (Roger Boulet; M.B. Loates Publishing Ltd.; 1981). Phillips also produced a watercolour of the same title, which is reproduced, opposite the print, on p. 138.
In 1928, the Hudson Bay Company commissioned Phillips to produce drawings of York boats. This undertaking had the added effect of rekindling in Phillips his interest in some of the lakeside villages of Manitoba. He began to sketch them, later using these sketches to produce watercolours and woodcuts. On one such sketching trip that began in Gimli, Phillips describes his impressions of this scene (pp. 114-15):
One day, dodging the raindrops, we drove north. We reached Hnausa, an inconsiderable hamlet, and left the highroad seeking the lake. We came upon it suddenly, and stopped by a gushing spring just short of a long angular pier. The plank causeway, relieved by occasional bollards, made straight for the horizon, changing its mind after 50 yards and turning to the right like a bending arm. There was a shack at the point where it ended abruptly.
This breakwater embraced a handsome lake steamer, a pure white craft with the high super-structure common to its kind, and seeming top-heavy to those who are accustomed to go down to the sea, instead of to the lake, in ships. There was no sign of life either on the boat or on the pier. In fact the prospect was singularly lonely.
The scene was an extraordinarily good arrangement, considered pictorially. Its beauty was apparent to the whole party, not all of whom were artists…the pathos of the scene was overwhelming. It was such a little boat, such a vast and empty setting.”
