Family of the artist
By descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario
Literature
Megan Bice, Light & Shadow: The Work of Franklin Carmichael, The McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, 1990, pages 37-40
Following a period of working primarily in oil during the infancy of the Group of Seven, Megan Bice notes that Franklin Carmichael returned to watercolour in 1924. During a 1930s talk, Carmichael discussed his passion for the medium, the artists who inspired his belief in watercolour and his puzzlement related to his perception of the early twentieth century attitude that the “Canadian landscape was regarded as unsuitable to watercolour.” The artist said: “As a medium, it is capable of responding to the slightest variation of effect or mood. It can be at once clean cut, sharp, delicate and forceful or subtle, brilliant or sombre, including all of the variations that lie in between.”
In 1925, Carmichael, A.J. Casson and Frederick Brigden founded the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, furthering the manifestation of Carmichael’s “desire to install watercolour in its rightful place of importance.” The years that followed found the painter exhibiting his watercolours regularly and providing a concrete personal valuation of the artwork in the pricing of his work. “Canvases generally commanded much higher sums, but the prices of Carmichael’s watercolour sketches equalled those for his oil panels; larger watercolours in 1926 demanded prices comparable to some canvases...By pricing his on-the-spot sketches identically and by assigning appropriate increases to studio works, whether oil or watercolour, the artist demonstrated his belief in the equivalency of the two media.”
