Additional Images

Provenance:

Manuge Galleries Limited, Halifax, NS;
Collection of Sir Christopher and Lady Ondaatje

Note:

As with lot 45, this painting depicts a fishing camp. These spaces did double-duty as both a place of leisure and business for the railway barons and their associates. Van Horne, while most famous for his role in building the railway, was also a sophisticated artist who most likely painted this work while visiting with Robert Gillespie Reid, to whom this painting is dedicated, in Newfoundland.

Born in Scotland, Robert Gillespie Reid (1842-1908) apprenticed as a stonemason in his home village before emigrating to Australia to seek his fortune in the goldfields. A future in gold mining was not to be, and Reid instead found work building stone viaducts to support a railway through the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. In 1869, his family returned to Scotland. By 1871, Reid moved to Canada. Reid worked as a stonemason in Ontario, before moving to California to work as a contractor and engineer. There he would solidify his reputation as a contractor and skilled builder, particularly with difficult bridge projects. Reid was recruited to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and would successfully bid on contracts to build various legs of the project, which secured his fortune. He was instrumental in building the railway across Newfoundland, for which he is chiefly known. From 1889 until his death, Reid would build, own and operate the Newfoundland Railway. He would also become the owner of huge tracts of land in the province. Though based in Montreal, Reid was known to winter in California and summer in Newfoundland.