Additional Images

Provenance:

Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, QC;
Sotheby Parke Bernet, Toronto, ON, 8 November 1983, lot 78, as River in the Woods, Winter;
Private Collection, London, ON

Note:

One of Canada's great painters of snow, Cullen possessed a romantic ability to capture the effects of light and a great sensitivity to atmosphere. These were skills honed from his time in Paris, where he studied at the Academy Leon Gerome, the Academy Julian, and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, before a return to Canada in 1895. Ostensibly there to learn French academic realism and Barbizon school painting, Cullen would find himself most drawn to the Impressionist style, its emphasis on expressive brushstrokes and a dedication to exploring the power of light. After his return to Canada, Cullen began painting the winter scenes which would become one of his trademarks, finding their genesis in a 1897 trip with James Wilson Morrice to paint on the Beaupré coast, a scenic region bordered by the St. Lawrence River, stretching from Montmorency Falls to Mont-Sainte-Anne.

Cullen’s stepson, Robert Pilot, further describes the artist’s "intensive study of the effects of light upon snow with all its intricate system of complementary colours and reflections. Few have equaled his sureness in interpreting this aspect of nature…He followed the seasons round from smiling summer through brilliant autumn to gleaming winter. He also traced the hours of the day to record the transitory play of light. "At some hour of the day" [Cullen] observed, "the commonest subject is beautiful."" [1]

[1] Conrad Graham, “Maurice Cullen,” Alan Klinkhoff Gallery, Toronto. Accessed online October 5, 2022. https://www.klinkhoff.ca/artists/102-maurice-cullen/