Additional Images

Provenance:

Acquired directly from the artist;
Private Collection, Victoria, BC

Note:

Rocks Grise Fiord was painted in the later part of McCarthy’s career, following her forty-year teaching tenure from 1932-1972. McCarthy found excitement in her retirement, viewing it as her last chance to travel and be a full-time artist. On July 5, 1972, during the summer of her retirement, McCarthy embarked on a trip to the Arctic and briefly visited Canada’s most northern settlement, Grise Fiord. She was invited back to Grise Fiord in the winter of 1976, following the death of two of her closest friends, Marjorie Wood and Pearl (Ginty) McGinnis. McCarthy found comfort in the Arctic landscape during this time, describing her second flight to Grise Fiord as passing “over half a dozen captive icebergs scattered out in the bay in front of the village. To me as a painter, these were riches…”

Grise Fiord seemed to be a sacred place for McCarthy, as her two visits occurred during transitional periods of her life: a rebirth in the spring of 1972 and a time of loss and healing in the deep winter trip of 1976. Artist Stuart Reid writes about McCarthy’s Arctic works as her acknowledgement of “our ongoing battle to freeze time and to have power over the constantly shifting world.” Here, McCarthy contrasts the deep tonal hues of rock with the icy blues of snow and ice, a study in two seemingly eternal elements.

References:
Doris McCarthy, The Good Wine: An Artist Comes of Age (Macfarlane Walter & Ross,
1991), 188.
William Moore and Stuart Reid, Celebrating Life: The Art of Doris McCarthy (The McMichael Canadian Art Collection: Kleinburg, Ontario, 1999), 223.