Additional Images

Provenance:

Estate of the Artist
Private Collection, Montreal
Private Collection, Toronto (by descent)

Note:

Randolph Hewton is known as a painter of portraits, figures and landscapes. Born in Quebec, Hewton studied first at the Art Association of Montreal, then in Paris, where he met A.Y. Jackson in 1912. They would remain lifelong friends. Hewton was invited to contribute to the first Group of Seven show held in Toronto in 1920, and later that year, was a founding member of the short-lived but significant Beaver Hall Group. (The Beaver Hall Group is the subject of a large exhibition currently on national tour.)

Hewton typically took time off work in the early spring (he ran a business manufacturing paper boxes) to sketch in the Charlevoix district of Quebec—at Baie St. Paul, St. Tite des Caps, St. Irénée—often in the company of Jackson and Percy Robinson. Quebec Village, Winter is a typical rural village scene with the church, whose central position is emphasized by the sweeping curve of the traditional bell-cast roof to the right, and signals its importance in the community. Spring is clearly in the air—the snow is melting, the sky is painted using strokes of warm beige, and Hewton has chosen a close-up view of the town, giving more area to the warm tones of the dwellings.