Stump and Smudge Pail: David Milne

Our major Canadian and International Fine Art auction opens with a selection of works from a distinguished family collection from Kingston, Ontario. Passionate and discerning collectors, the family lived with these works in their home for decades, bringing together a significant and carefully curated selection of Canadian and international art. Seven works from the collection are offered in this auction, each with exceptional provenance and a history of acquisition through some of Canada’s most respected galleries and dealers.

Among the highlights is Stump and Smudge Pail by David Milne, acquired by the family from Douglas Duncan, a founding member of the Picture Loan Society in Toronto and Milne’s agent.

In its first appearance at auction in its century-long existence, Stump and Smudge Pail is an eloquent reminder of Milne’s remarkable achievement. It was painted when Milne divided his time between Big Moose Lake and Lake Placid, almost 350 kilometres due north of New York City.

Apart from his service in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and Canadian War Records during the First World War and a brief stay in Ottawa over the fall and winter of 1923-24, Milne lived and worked in New York City and upstate New York following his departure from Canada in 1903. In New York City, he saw the finest historical and modern art to be seen in North America and exhibited assiduously.

As a member of the Canadian War Records (1918-1919) he was able to paint steadily without concern for the costs of living or his materials. His consistent diligence and artistic drive contributed to him making the most formally daring paintings made by a Canadian in the 1920s and ‘30s.

Stump and Smudge Pail effectively conveys Milne’s achievement in this moment. A palette of cool silver grey heightened by white and accents of black, burnt sienna, veridian, vermilion, and violet activate the intimate view of a tree stump on the left and pail of smouldering smudge in bottom right. Saplings in background are a vertical screen against which the stump is rendered in echoing, broader, vertical brushstrokes and the plume of smoke from the smudge pail swirls to the top of the composition.

By the middle of the 1920s, paintings like Stump and Smudge Pot, the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Black House I (1925), and the National Gallery of Canada’s Sparkle of Glass (1926 or 1927) and Tribute to Spring (1925) were abstractions made legible by Milne’s nuanced tracery. This intimate view devoid of horizon, sky, or terrain evokes Milne’s beloved Henry David Thoreau and takes us deep into our solitude, when the humble things we see are all there is, and they are abundant in and of themselves.

Contributed by Gregory Humeniuk, an independent art historian, writer, and curator since 2016. Humeniuk has researched and published on modern-contemporary Canadian and international art, cultural policy and governance, and provided monetary appraisals for private and public collections. From 2022 to 2024 he was the Senior Specialist, Canadian Fine Art, at Waddington’s Auctioneers & Appraisers. From 1999 to 2016 he worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario in roles engaged with Canadian and European historical, modern, and contemporary art.

About the Auction

Headlining our major fall 2026 Canadian & International Fine Art auction are works by renowned Canadian artists Cornelius Krieghoff, Gordon Appelbe Smith, Frederick Arthur Verner, A.J. Casson, A.Y. Jackson, and William Kurelek, alongside international offerings by Edouard Cortès and Henri Lebasque. Also featured is a collection of works by Georges Mathieu, David Milne, and Eduardo Paolozzi from an Important Private Collection. Additional highlights include exceptional, unpublished works by Fernand Léger and Sir Alfred James Munnings.

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On View:
Saturday, November 14 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Sunday, November 15 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Monday, November 16 from 10 am to 5 pm
Tuesday, November 17 from 10 am to 7 pm
Wednesday, November 18 from 10 am to 5 pm

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