Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Ontario.

Literature:

Paul Duval, A.J. Casson, His Life & Works/A Tribute, Toronto, 1980, page 150.
Pierre B. Landry (Editor), Catalogue of the National Gallery of Canada,Ottawa, Canadian Art, Volume Two / G-K, Ottawa, 1994, page 150, cat. 4912.

Note:

“Evening, Nipigon River” represents one of Yvonne McKague Housser’s contributions to the Sampson Matthews silkscreen project, the artist chosen with a group of her contemporaries by the committee of A.J. Casson, H.O. McCurry and A.Y. Jackson. Duval writes: “Early in the war years, Casson helped initiate a programme to produce silkscreen prints of Canadian landscapes to decorate the barracks and canteens of troops at home and overseas. These prints were to be large, and to portray all parts of the country, so that there would be something familiar to remind sailors, soldiers and airmen of their familiar home areas…The silkscreen programme proved to be one of the least expensive and most valuable moral boosters of the war. The prints were distributed and enjoyed in military posts around the world. For many of the servicemen, it provided an introduction to the work of many Canadian artists, and must have stimulated their continuing interest later in peacetime. Of all the wartime projects in which Casson was involved, this was the one in which he found the deepest satisfaction.”

The National Gallery of Canada’s collection includes “Evening, Nipigon River”, a circa 1942 oil on paperboard work by Housser which presents the same general landscape as this lot. Differences between the works are mainly found in the colouring of the two paintings. The National Gallery artwork was completed in the muted earthen tones traditionally found in Housser’s original work, while this painting is composed using fewer core colours, possibly serving the colour variation limits of the silkscreen process. The only significant difference in the subject matter of the two paintings is the addition of the fisherman in his boat, not present in the National Gallery’s painting but found in this lot and the Sampson Matthews silkscreen reproductions of “Evening, Nipigon River”.

The second image above illustrates the Sampson Matthews silkscreen of “Evening, Nipigon River” (not included with this lot).