Lot 28
ARTHUR LISMER, O.S.A., R.C.A. (1885-1969)
Additional Images
Provenance:
Walker's Auctions, Ottawa, ON, 5 Dec 2007, lot 118;
Private collection, Toronto, ON
Exhibited:
Canadian Group of Painters Travelling Exhibition, 15 Sept - 6 Oct 1957, Montreal, QC
Note:
The artistic careers of the members of the Group of Seven following its dissolution in 1933 present fascinating case studies: Lawren S. Harris pursued abstraction. A.Y. Jackson and Frederick H. Varley maintained their commitments to the subjects they painted prior to and during the Group’s heyday. Arthur Lismer is conspicuous for his pursuit of new subjects, locales, and painting techniques.
Starfish and Seaweed is a fine example of Lismer’s new lease on artistic life and was exhibited in the 1957 exhibition of the Canadian Group of Painters in Montreal. In contrast to the myth and reality of the Group’s predilection for expansive views of the landscape–something to which Lismer never dogmatically adhered–it is a probing look down into a tidal pool on Vancouver Island where he began vacationing in the early 1950s. It is a study in painting informed by 50 years of experience.
It is impossible to look at Starfish and Seaweed without thinking of Lismer’s absorption of new trends in painting in Montreal where he had been living and teaching since 1940, and the modern painting he saw on trips to New York. Rendered simply, the starfish and float are enlivened and refined by Lismer’s use of the butt-end of his brush to draw through the paint. The seaweed is a glorious melee of purple madder and ultramarine evoking the facture of Marcel Barbeau’s Shoreline (1953) in the National Gallery of Canada, and shows Lismer’s quiet confidence to see new things, be unencumbered by his history, and nurture his evolution.