David Brown Milne 1882 - 1953

Milne sale to Vincent Massey, 1934

Laing Galleries, Toronto

Robert McMichael, Kleinberg, Ontario

Private Collection, Kitchener, 1962

Private Collection, Toronto

David Milne Jr. and David P. Silcox, David B. Milne Catalogue Raisonné Volume I, 302.135, illustrated in black and white, p. 539

This painting has been viewed under UV and it is in prisitine condition. We would like to thank "In Restauro Conservart Inc." for examing this painting and their original notes are available upon request to Sotheby's.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

With over two hundred canvases and a good deal of time spent creating some of his most important colour drypoints, Milne's rate of production during his three years (1930 - 1933) at Palgrave, in the Caledon Hills just northwest of Toronto, was exceptional.

More remarkable still, his sojourn there was during the first years of the Great Depression, and his circumstances were thin. He had one coat, one pair of pants, one shirt; he helped a local farmer with his harvest in exchange for cutting the winter's wood in his forest lot. What little income he received (nearly all spent on paint, canvas, and paper) was the highly irregular mortgage payments for the cottage he had built in the Adirondacks between 1925 and 1928.

Most telling was that his relationship with his wife of nearly twenty years had reached a nadir. According to local accounts, they hardly spoke to each other the whole time. A legal separation was drawn up as Milne departed in the spring of 1933, travelling by canoe up Lake Simcoe and the Severn River to his next locale - Six Mile Lake in Southern Muskoka.

Blue Cloud is one of the small gems that Milne painted during this period. The subject, one he treated several times in different ways, is the house he rented, the red brick one on the left, and his next door neighbours', the Gibsons, in white.

As with nearly all the Palgrave paintings, which were purchased by Alice and Vincent Massey in 1934 for five dollars each, Milne was using white, black, and mid-value (gray) 'tones' with only two or three 'hues' or colours. The tones occupy most of the surface of the painting, defining its basic structure; the hues, collectively, constitute a slim fraction of the whole. However, the hues are what animate the painting, the elements that snag the eye. In this particular canvas, the hues are spare amounts of red, purple and blue. And while we know that clouds are white, for Milne the eye easily makes the transition from a blue sky to a blue cloud - if the shape is legible.