Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Ontario

Literature:

Wayne Larsen, A.Y. Jackson: The Life of a Landscape Painter, Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2009, page 200.

Note:

In August of 1955, with his friends Professor and Mrs. H. U. Ross, A.Y. Jackson acquired some property on Twidale Bay on the east shore of Lake Superior near Wawa. This work would have been painted during his first month at his new property.

The subject is Middle Silver Falls, on the Magpie River. As its name implies, it is one of three falls on the river - High Falls and Low Falls are the other two - and is considered to be the most scenic of the three cascades. The falls are compressed by rocks on either side as the river narrows before it drops, which results in a dramatic torrent of water, downplayed here somewhat by Jackson who is equally interested in the dense woods that surround the chute and the lake into which the water tumbles.

Jackson skillfully leaves unpainted select patches of the board on which this sketch is rendered to introduce golden highlights amid the blue spruce and evergreens, hinting that late summer is beginning to show signs that autumn is coming.