Provenance:

Private Collection, Ontario.

Note:

Frederick Haines enjoyed a long and active career within the Canadian art industry, holding such prestigious positions as curator of the Art Gallery of Toronto from 1927 to 1932, principal of the Ontario College of Art, and the Commissioner of Fine Arts with the Canadian National Exhibition (both between 1932 and 1951). The artist also served terms as president of the Royal Canadian Academy (1939 to 1942), the Ontario Society of Artists (1924 to 1927) and the Arts & Letters Club in Toronto (1947). Pearl McCarthy noted in a March 17th, 1951 Globe and Mail article that Haines had a hand in “almost every art activity in Toronto.”

With its rich colours, Autumn Woods denotes the woods during a season so often depicted by Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, Haines sharing membership in artistic associations with members of the Group and accompanying the painters on some of their historic sketching trips. It is an ambitious work which presents an impersonally observed but poetic representation of nature in the out-of-doors and arguably displays an affinity for the work of Tom Thomson. Although there is not historical detail of the two artists crossing paths, Haines’ camaraderie with many of the friends and colleagues of Thomson would, at the very least, have provided the artist with many direct sources of information and admiration for Tom Thomson’s work. Haines purchased two of Thomson’s oil sketches for his personal collection, the two paintings now part of Canadian institutional collections and, in 1927, when Haines was appointed Curator of the Art Gallery of Toronto, he put his admiration for Thomson’s work into further effect, acquiring ten sketches by Thomson for the collection: seven through purchase and three excellent examples by gift from Lawren and Trixie Harris.

Similarities to Thomson’s work appear in Autumn Woods through the glowing, vibrant colour, the use of underpainting and the stylistic traces of art nouveau (the foreground branch), as well as in the way the sky at the top of the painting “opens up the view,” as Thomson would have said of his own work. The effect of this canvas is at once calming and unpretentious, the composition and colour creating an almost ceremonial gravity: the interplay of trees, branches, leaves and water pushing the artist’s usual serenity into a festive celebration of the splendour of the Canadian autumn. It is an impressive example of the prowess of Haines as a painter, one in which he realized his full potential, presenting a visual feast of remarkable freshness.

We would like to thank art historian, Joan Murray, for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.