Provenance:

The Watson Art Galleries, Montreal.
Private Collection, Ontario.

Literature:

Dennis Reid, Canadian Jungle, The Later Work of Arthur Lismer, Toronto, 1985, pages 54-57.
John A.B. McLeish, September Gale: A Study of Arthur Lismer and the Group of Seven, Toronto/Vancouver, 1955, pages 185-187.

Note:

During the 1950s and ‘60s, Arthur Lismer’s landscape work frequently featured colourful and detailed depictions of settings discovered by the painter in Nova Scotia and British Columbia, John McLeish noting that during the period, “both coasts fascinated Lismer.” Dennis Reid, discussing subject matter found by Lismer during his visits to Long Beach, B.C., mentions that, “his fondness for rotting stumps and exposed roots was easily satisfied at Long Beach, and his subtle modulation of tone and texture reached new levels of technical brilliance.” Recalling the inclusion of Canadian coastal scenes in the 1950 Lismer Retrospective Exhibition, held successively at the Art Gallery of Toronto and the National Gallery of Canada, McLeish comments that, “the extraordinary features of the exhibition were the artist’s continuing vitality and venturesomeness as he sought themes in British Columbia and in the coastal towns of Nova Scotia, and then poured his seemingly unquenchable feeling into them.”