- 70
Frank (Franz) Hans Johnston 1888 - 1949
Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 CAD
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Description
- Frank (Franz) Hans Johnston
- Scene From Acton Island
- signed and dated '26 lower left; inscribed For Architects Exhibit, Painted by Franz Johnston, ARCA OSA #474 Yonge St. on the reverse
- oil on panel
- 37 by 168 cm.
- 14 5/8 by 66 in.
Provenance
Private Collection, Tweed, Ontario (by descent to the present owner)
Catalogue Note
Johnston’s short-lived membership in the Group of Seven didn’t keep him from continuing to paint the Canadian landscape with the vigour and innovation that had moved the Group to come together just a few years before he made this remarkable painting.
Johnston was trained in commercial art, as were all the members of the Group, save Harris, and that had given him both facility and technical dexterity. In his later life, his seemingly easy gift became rather more facile and thin, but through most of the 1920s he still had an energy that was focused and tight.
This vibrant panel, done in 1926, was probably intended to adorn a space above a fireplace or mantle, which it has done for most of the last few decades. Johnston made this panoramic view looking out from Acton Island, in Lake Muskoka. He painted it with a generous, full brush, rich colours, and created a composition that is both at ease and yet quite complex. The tall trees that punctuate the wide stretch before us at convenient yet pleasing intervals also serve as staunch pillars that seem to hold the scene open for us. The small areas of brilliant colour are apportioned judiciously across the whole vista.
This painting also shows that Johnston was as capable as his other Group members in providing a stunning decorative panel to grace a cottage or home. This work surely puts him on a level with Thomson, MacDonald, Lismer, and Jackson, who provided a number of murals and panels for the cottage of Dr. James MacCallum, their patron and supporter -- works now in the National Gallery of Canada.
Johnston was trained in commercial art, as were all the members of the Group, save Harris, and that had given him both facility and technical dexterity. In his later life, his seemingly easy gift became rather more facile and thin, but through most of the 1920s he still had an energy that was focused and tight.
This vibrant panel, done in 1926, was probably intended to adorn a space above a fireplace or mantle, which it has done for most of the last few decades. Johnston made this panoramic view looking out from Acton Island, in Lake Muskoka. He painted it with a generous, full brush, rich colours, and created a composition that is both at ease and yet quite complex. The tall trees that punctuate the wide stretch before us at convenient yet pleasing intervals also serve as staunch pillars that seem to hold the scene open for us. The small areas of brilliant colour are apportioned judiciously across the whole vista.
This painting also shows that Johnston was as capable as his other Group members in providing a stunning decorative panel to grace a cottage or home. This work surely puts him on a level with Thomson, MacDonald, Lismer, and Jackson, who provided a number of murals and panels for the cottage of Dr. James MacCallum, their patron and supporter -- works now in the National Gallery of Canada.