2017 May | Hodgins Art Auctions

Notes:

signed, titled & dated

Notes:

signed & titled
Provenance: Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, QC (labels verso)
Exhibited: “Hommage a Albert H. Robinson” (1994), Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal, QC (No. 48)

Initially self-taught, Robinson obtained work as an illustrator for the Hamilton Times, and attended the Hamilton Art School under John Sloan Gordon. Then, having saved enough money to further his artistic education in France, Robinson travelled abroad. He trained at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. For two additional years he traveled and painted in Normandy and Corsica with the English artist Thomas William Marshall. Upon his return to Canada he contributed to his first group exhibition. Then, with the assistance of supportive arts patrons, Robinson moved to Montreal and was introduced to several prominent artists of the day. Among them, was A. Y. Jackson, with whom he traveled back to France to paint in 1911; this was the first of many sketching trips they would take together. That same year, Robinson exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and became one of the youngest members to be elected associate of the RCA – he became a full member by 1920, the same year that he exhibited alongside the Group of Seven at their first exhibition.

Albert Henry Robinson was an active and well-respected member of the artistic community. He exhibited regularly and he became one of the founding members of the Canadian Group of Painters in 1933. During these prodigious years Robinson and A. Y. Jackson organized regular painting excursions to various picturesque regions of Quebec, travelling with a number of other artists including Edwin Holgate and Clarence Gagnon.

Sadly, Robinson suffered a heart attack in 1933. The deterioration of his health, along with arthritis in his hands, prevented him from painting again. Robinson’s legacy lies in the iconic works painted in Quebec during the years from 1918-1933. Retrospectives of his work were held in 1955 by both the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the National Gallery of Canada.

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Provenance: Masters Gallery, Calgary, AB; Canadian Fine Art, Toronto, ON (labels verso)

Born in Montreal, to a prominent family, Anne Savage grew up in the Dorval countryside, summering in the Laurentians. Her surroundings were an early artistic inspiration, as was watching her Aunt Minnie, an amateur painter and role model, when she visited the family. Savage initially failed the art examination for McGill University, but persisted on her aunt’s advice, and gained admission, and subsequent scholarships, to the Art Association of Montreal. Here, she studied under William Brymner and Maurice Cullen. In 1919, after seeing an exhibition of Tom Thomson’s work, she strongly identified with his images and the vision that would also guide the Group of Seven. Savage developed a life-long friendship with A. Y. Jackson, a kindred spirit, and with many of the artist’s of the time who he inspired to “create a Canadian art for Canada”.

Anne Douglas Savage was well respected for her long and distinguished career as an educator. She was involved in the creation of the Beaver Hall Hill Group, the Canadian Group of Painters, and The Atelier: A School of Drawing, Painting, Sculpture”. She was an early modernist and feminist, devoting herself to teaching and her art. Even though she regularly painted and exhibited, It was not until later that her accomplishments as an artist, in her own right, were recognized. A retrospective of her work was organized in 1969 in Montreal, and recognition of her place in Canadian art history continues to grow .

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signed
Provenance: Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, QC; Masters Gallery, Calgary, AB

Kathleen Moir Morris was an active member of the lively Quebec art community in the 1920s and ‘30s. While she received critical acclaim during her career, there was a time in recent history when she, and many other important Canadian women painters, languished almost forgotten. Morris, an early modernist, is known for her intimate, gentle scenes of Quebec and eastern Ontario, often depicting small towns, churches, markets, horse-drawn sleighs, vignettes of everyday life. Particularly prized are her timeless winter scenes, where the light and shadow of the snow interplays with rich contrasting colours to create brilliant canvases.

Kathleen Morris was born the youngest of four children, and only daughter, of Eliza Howard Bell and Montague John Morris. She was born with a disorder of the nervous system that affected her speech and motor skills. When young Kathleen showed a passion for drawing, her mother arranged for piano lessons to help improve her coordination, and then actively encouraged her to paint. Morris always maintained a positive spirit and joy for life. In a 1976 interview with the Montreal Gazette, Morris recalls “I had a wonderful mother, she would take me off on sketching trips and sit beside me while I painted. But on cold days I would go alone. I couldn’t walk miles, so I would be taken out to paint in a sleigh where I would be dropped off. The snow was so deep that the only place I could paint was in the tracks of the sleigh… But do you know, I was never cold. It was so beautiful.”
Morris pursued her formal studies at the Art Association of Montreal (The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) under the well-known Canadian artists Maurice Cullen and William Brymner. Art in Canada was historically a man’s domain. Even during the 1920s, when the Group of Seven was revolutionizing the image of art in Canada, group membership remained male. It was in that era, in 1920, that Morris joined a group of women artists at a studio building located at 305 Beaver Hall Hill in Montreal. Here, the 10 female group members worked alongside their male colleagues, supported each other during their rise to prominence, and remained lifelong friends and associates. These women participated in a number of exhibitions as a group, and also exhibited with the Group of Seven, in Canada and internationally. Morris, became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1929, and the Canadian Group of Painters in 1940. While she exhibited in many group and association shows, Morris had only one solo exhibition during her artistic career (1939).

Although largely overlooked by art historians and not well known by the public, Kathleen Morris’ work, and that of the other members of the Beaver Hall Hill Group, is the subject of renewed discovery, and is finally beginning to achieve due recognition in the history of Canadian Art.

Notes:

signed; titled & dated on the artist’s label verso

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signed recto; signed, titled & dated on artist’s label verso

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signed & dated; titled on label verso

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titled and dated on the authentication certificate verso; certified by Lucile Rodier Gagnon, Paris 1946; Gagnon inventory #412.
Clarence Gagnon was born in a small village in rural Quebec. His English mother helped to foster his early interest in drawing and painting, while his French-Canadian father preferred that his son pursue a career in business. Despite his father’s objections, Gagnon began his studies at the Art Association of Montreal, under the guidance of William Brymner. Then, like many Quebec artists of his time, he continued his artistic education in Paris, where he attended the Academie Julien (1904-1905). Gagnon immersed himself in the artistic community, submitting his work to the St. Louis Art Exhibition and the Salon de la Societe des Artistes Francais, where it earned high praise. 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, in the picturesque Charlevoix region.

It was in this countryside nestled between the Laurentians and the St. Lawrence River, that Gagnon produced most of his plein-air sketches. Later, in his Paris studio, where he spent much of his adult life, Gagnon developed these sketches into his major canvases. During his first major show at the Montparnasse Gallery in 1913, it was Gagnon’s paintings of an idyllic, rural Quebec and his scenes of French-Canadian life that attracted the most attention. Perhaps it was the artist’s affection for his beloved homeland that resonated in the work. From this point on, Gagnon focused almost exclusively on the Quebec landscape. In 1931, referring to his time in Paris, Gagnon said, “Over there, I paint only Canadian subjects, I dream only of Canada. The motif remains fixed in my mind, and I don’t allow myself to be captivated by the charm of a new landscape. In Switzerland, Scandinavia – everywhere, I recall my French Canada.”

Notes:

signed; titled & dated on the artist’s label verso

Notes:

signed, titled & dated
Note: Inscribed verso “This is the Saffron Pass area in the Purcell Mountain with Mt. Christine in the background. This incident is taken place at the 7500 ft. level around the year 1904. British Columbia”.