Jim King’s Wharf, Alert, B.C. by Walter Joseph Phillips
W.J. Phillips
Jim King’s Wharf, Alert, B.C.
colour woodblock
signed, titled and numbered 17/100 in the lower margin
10.75 x 8 ins ( 27.3 x 20.3 cms ) ( subject )
Auction Estimate: $7,000.00 - $9,000.00
Price Realized $10,200.00
Sale date: June 1st 2016
Roger H. Boulet, “The Tranquility and the Turbulence”, Markham, 1981, illustrated page 107
Phillips writes on the wharf: “Some of the coastal steamers tie up at the end of this crazy wharf, and discharge consignments of groceries and other articles of commerce, for the genial Chinese merchant Jim King, whose store stands at the shore end of it. The tide races along Johnstone Strait between the shore and Vancouver Island, whose snow-capped peaks may be seen in the distance.”
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Walter Joseph Phillips
(1884 - 1963) RCA
W.J. Phillips was born in Lincolnshire, England in 1884. Trained at the Birmingham School of Art, he was a successful watercolour artist in England before he and his wife, Gladys, emigrated to Winnipeg in 1913. Although watercolour remained his primary medium, the woodblock print was an enduring interest which brought his work to a wider audience. Among W.J. Phillips’ best-known and loved images in watercolour and woodblock print are those which depict family holidays on Lake of the Woods from the teens until 1925. In 1940, Walter Phillips was asked to be artist in residence at the Banff School of Fine Arts. He moved to Calgary in 1941 where he taught at the provincial Institute of Technology and Art.
W.J. Phillips’ works are housed in galleries across Canada including The National Gallery of Canada, The Winnipeg Art Gallery, and the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies as well as collections abroad in London, Washington D.C., New Jersey, Japan, and private collections the world over. The most extensive private collection of work by Phillips was gifted to the city of Winnipeg. Permanently housed in the Pavilion Gallery Museum in Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park, the Crabb collection is available for public viewing year round.
