- 107
Alexander Young Jackson 1882 - 1974
Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 CAD
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Description
- Alexander Young Jackson
- Beaver Lake, Algoma
- signed lower right; signed and titled on the stretcher
- oil on canvas
- 51 by 63.8 cm.
- 20 by 25 in.
Provenance
Laing Galleries, Toronto
Private Collection, Calgary
Private Collection, Toronto
Private Collection, Calgary
Private Collection, Calgary
Private Collection, Toronto
Private Collection, Calgary
Literature
Art Gallery of Toronto, AY Jackson Paintings 1902-1953, Toronto, 1953. p. 6.
Naomi Jackson Groves, A.Y. Jackson's Canada, Toronto, 1968, p. 112.
Naomi Jackson Groves, A.Y. Jackson's Canada, Toronto, 1968, p. 112.
Catalogue Note
Jackson usually tended to shy away from full summer paintings, since they had, he thought, too much ‘undifferentiated green’ and were therefore unpaintable. Writing later about Tom Thomson in Algonquin Park, Jackson noted: "Thomson was much indebted to the lumber companies. They had built dams and log chutes and made clearings for camps. But for them the landscape would have been just bush, difficult to travel in and with nothing to paint."
Beavers also build dams, sometimes quite extensive ones, and this painting’s subject owes nothing to lumber companies. In this fine canvas Jackson has confronted his aversion to green with both verve and intelligence. By catching the scene at a magical moment of stillness, he has made this beaver pond and its reflection into an excellent painting. Further, he has given viewers many different greens, a whole spectrum, that both contrast with and complement the foreground logs and the animated sky. He has even added on over-hanging branch in the upper right corner, which indicates that the artist was probably sitting comfortably high up on the shore with his back against a pine tree.
Jackson was complimentary about MacDonald’s stunning paintings in the Algoma region, but his own work there was also of a very high order, as this canvas readily attests.
Beavers also build dams, sometimes quite extensive ones, and this painting’s subject owes nothing to lumber companies. In this fine canvas Jackson has confronted his aversion to green with both verve and intelligence. By catching the scene at a magical moment of stillness, he has made this beaver pond and its reflection into an excellent painting. Further, he has given viewers many different greens, a whole spectrum, that both contrast with and complement the foreground logs and the animated sky. He has even added on over-hanging branch in the upper right corner, which indicates that the artist was probably sitting comfortably high up on the shore with his back against a pine tree.
Jackson was complimentary about MacDonald’s stunning paintings in the Algoma region, but his own work there was also of a very high order, as this canvas readily attests.