2020 November | Hodgins Art Auctions

Notes:

signed & dated lower left; titled on the stretcher verso

Notes:

signed, titled & editioned in pencil

Notes:

signed, titled, dated & editioned in pencil

Notes:

signed lower right
Provenance: Canadian Art Galleries, Calgary AB

Notes:

monogrammed lower right; signed, titled & dated on the stretcher verso
Provenance: Formerly from the corporate collection of Home Oil Ltd. / Devon Energy (Calgary AB)

Kerr was drawn to art as a boy, growing up in Lumsden, Saskatchewan. His first teacher was his mother, a watercolour artist, who encouraged him to pursue an artistic career. At age 14, the young artist entered a number of his works in the Regina Exhibition of 1919, earning 13 first prize awards, and gaining the confidence to go further. Kerr received his formal training in Toronto, at the Ontario College of Art (1923-1927), where his instructors included Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, Frederick Varley, and William Beatty. While the Group of Seven approach to painting was not expressly taught at OCA, Kerr was exposed to the ideals and philosophy of the Group. While in Toronto, he attended exhibitions and visited several studios, including those of A. Y. Jackson and Lawren Harris. Kerr was inspired to apply this non-traditional, emotive, and uniquely Canadian approach to landscape painting in Western Canada.

During his life, Kerr not only became an accomplished and respected artist, but an influential instructor and mentor for new generations of artists. In 1946, he accepted a teaching position at the Vancouver School of Art, and the following year moved to Calgary to head the Art Department at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art (now Alberta University of the Arts). Under his 20-year tenure, Illingworth Kerr was largely responsible for the development of art education in Calgary. This responsibility and commitment constrained Kerr, and he was not able to paint full time until his retirement in 1967. At this stage, Kerr was able to approach his art with the freedom and perspective of a mature artist. He experimented with abstraction, with colour and brushwork, and finally began to feel personal satisfaction with his work, having gained the understanding that “the essence of a work of art is the product of a personality”. In his reflections, Kerr writes: “Some say, ‘Your subject does not matter; it’s what you do to it.’ I say what matters is what your subject does to you”. Nowhere is this clearer, that in Kerr’s nocturnes. During these later years, Kerr truly mastered the nuanced palette of the nocturne, blending hues to alternately elicit light and darken shadows. In this iconic scene of Elbow Falls, the starlight illuminates the rushing water and plays dramatically off the dark riverbanks. Kerr has embraced the black ground upon which he richly layers colour. Kerr wrote: “Black offered its void of space from which to move forward – or into which to retreat when external appearance of form threatened to mask the personality beneath”. Kerr’s late nocturnes are sublime renderings that succeed in capturing mood, atmosphere and the essence of a moment in a way unmatched by earlier works.

Reference: “Illingworth Kerr: Fifty Years a Painter”; Alberta College of Art; 1973.

Note: the corresponding sketch for this major canvas is offered in this sale as lot 161.

Notes:

titled lower left; signed & titled verso

Notes:

signed & editioned in the cast; titled on the artist’s plaque

Notes:

signed lower right; titled lower left
Provenance: Calgary Stampede Western Art Auction

Notes:

signed, dated & editioned in the cast; titled on the artist’s plaque

Notes:

signed & dated lower right; signed & titled verso and on the exhibition label
Provenance: Johnson Art Galleries, Montreal QC
Exhibited: Royal Canadian Academy (Montreal Exhibition)
Literature: “The Last Buffalo: The Story of Frederick Arthur Verner, Painter of the Canadian West” (Joan Murray; Pagurian Press; 1984). Refer to pages 136 and 145 for examples of similar works (dating from 1909 and 1906 respectively).

One of very few painters of the era born in Ontario, Verner is known for his interpretations of the majestic Prairie Bison and Indigenous life in early Canada. Verner exhibited widely during his long career: with the Royal Canadian Academy (from its founding in 1880 until his death in 1928); with the Ontario Society of Artists (1872-1922); with the Art Association on Montreal (1872-1922); and he exhibited regularly overseas.

Verner began studying the Plains Buffalo early in his career, initially using books, illustrations and artwork as source material. By the time Verner made his first trip West, the animals had virtually disappeared from the Prairies. An early painting titled “The Stampede”, by American artist William Jacob Hays, impressed Verner and initiated his fascination with the animals and a dedication to painting them in earnest. Bison would become a favoured subject for the remaining 66 years of the artist’s life. In 1875, Verner began to draw bison from life, studying them and creating sketches for future use, often in zoos or wild west shows. Unlike other early Western and American artists, Verner did not portray the Bison in hunting scenes, rather preferring to depict them as he imagined they would have been in their free and natural state.