Lot 31
ARTHUR LISMER, O.S.A., R.C.A.
Literature:
Dennis Reid, “Canadian Jungle, The Later Works of Arthur Lismer”, Toronto, 1985, page 52.
Joyner Waddington’s Canadian Fine Art, “Canadian Art”, auction, Toronto, November 22nd, 2010, lot 60, for Lismer’s canvas based on this oil sketch (entitled “Forest and Shore, B.C.”).
Note:
Discussing a fall 1954 exhibition of Arthur Lismer’s recent paintings and drawings, Dennis Reid describes the public reception to the travelling show: “Warmly received at every stop, there were a number of sensitive responses from local critics. The most perceptive was a review from Regina by Richard Simmins…[who] found the ‘Recent Paintings’ to be ‘rather a choice little exhibition by one of Canada’s best painters’. The B.C. sketches in particular were, for him ‘full of bright color (sic), intense in feeling and full of nervous, vital movement. I noticed that Lismer has a trick of accentuating movement by emphasizing contour. Instead of outlining a writhing line in colour, he uses the wooden end of his brush to scrape away a line which emphasizes form…Lismer is known to be a fine draughtsman and I find this return to a linear quality in his painting very interesting…Generally speaking one is impressed by the color (sic) vitality of the exhibition and the sense of the artist’s immediacy in relation to nature. In many cases, he takes mundane subject matter, magnifies it and turns chaos into order and art.’”