Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Toronto, ON

Literature:

Ontario Society of Artists Fifty-Second Annual Exhibition – 1924 (exh. cat.) (Toronto: Art Gallery of Toronto), no. 152, p. 25.
Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture by British, American and Canadian Artists; Graphic Art and Photography (Toronto: Canadian National Exhibition, 1924), no. 319, p. 52.
M.L.F. [Margaret L. Fairbairn], “All Paintings So Good Hard to Know the Best,” The Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON) 8 March 1924, 3.
Anon., “Artists of Ontario Exhibit Their Work,” The Globe (Toronto, ON) 8 March 1924, 15.
Hector Charlesworth, "O.S.A. Annual Exhibition: Technical Average High and Group System Disappearing,” Saturday Night (Toronto, ON) (29 March 1924).
Anon., “Graphic Exhibition Replete with Work of Famous Artists,” The Globe (Toronto, ON) 28 August 1924, 13.
Catalogue of the Forty-Sixth Exhibition of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (exh. cat.) (Toronto: Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, 1924), published in conjunction with an exhibition organized by the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, presented at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, no. 198, p. 17, repro. b/w.

Exhibited:

Ontario Society of Artists Fifty-Second Annual Exhibition, Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto, ON, 8 March-8 April 1924, no. 152.
Paintings and Sculpture by British, American and Canadian Artists; Graphic Art and Photography, Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, ON, 23 August-6 September 1924, no. 319.
Forty-Sixth Exhibition of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON, 20 November-20 December 1924, no. 198

Note:

In the 1920s and 1930s Stanley Francis Turner (1883-1953) was active exhibiting in Toronto at the Canadian National Exhibition, the Ontario Society of Artists, and the Royal Canadian Academy. Recently, Summertime appeared on the market untitled and undocumented, and Waddington’s is delighted to present it titled and documented, allowing us to know what it is and understand its modern relevance.

Contrasted with Peter Clapham Sheppard’s Horticultural Building, Canadian National Exhibition sold by Waddington’s on 2 December 2022, Turner’s Summertime is a view of leisure in Toronto more than five years after fighting ended in the First World War. While Turner’s painting would have been more accepted in the United Kingdom or Allied Europe where the post-war return to order was more profound, its ambition and stylishness put it out of place in middle 1920s Toronto. The local rhetoric supporting the Group of Seven saw aspects of the landscape and burnt-out land in terms of destruction and trauma of the recent past. If the resemblance between the bridge in Summertime and the bridge over the lagoon between Centre Island and Olympic Island is not a coincidence, Summertime is a provocative Art Deco fête champêtre on the Toronto Islands.

The brilliantly attired young adults are absorbed in themselves and their impromptu performance following a picnic. In the bottom right, in the shade, a child looks on apprehensively while an older woman with clenched hands stares impassively at the viewer, imbuing the gaiety with melancholy. Estimating the young adults are barely older than twenty years, the lone woman possibly in her late forties or early fifties, and the child about ten years old, the young are people who were too young to fight in the First World War, who now enjoy dalliances afforded by peace and prosperity. The older woman could have had a son, husband or both that fought and were maimed or killed, while the girl may be her daughter or granddaughter. The contemporary reception of Summertime suggests the plausibility of this narrative, as the artist was sufficiently known and had been the recipient of critical attention. The painting was bold enough that critics took note of it, yet its acute and artful presentation of the profound disruptions of the lived moment were not comprehended by critics like Margaret Fairbairn, who picked up on the painting’s gaiety without understanding the figures’ activity.[1]

[1] M.L.F., “All Paintings So Good Hard to Know the Best,” The Toronto Daily Star (Toronto, ON) (8 March 1924): 3.