Dover Mountains, Norway

Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal Dr. & Mrs. Walter Percival, Windsor Private Collection, Toronto

Restaurant Exhibition, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1959 Windsor Collects: 150 Years of Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Windsor, July 19 - September 28, 1997, no. 33

"Clarence Gagnon," National Gallery of Canada Collections, http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=1932, accessed April 3, 2017

Between 1922 and 1936 Clarence Gagnon lived mostly in Europe, based primarily in France and embarking on road trips during summer months. The artist first discovered Scandinavia whilst on one of these trips 1929, beginning with Denmark and followed by Sweden and Norway. Gagnon was very much smitten with Scandinavia, as he was maple and birch trees, wooden houses and a way of life that reminded him of his home in the Baie-Saint-Paul region of Charlevoix, Quebec. “Dover Mountains, Norway” demonstrates the painter’s enduring influence of French Impressionism, visible in the soft and loose brushstrokes dappled across the landscape. Though Gagnon lived overseas and depicted European settings, his psyche never left his native country. In 1931 the artist declared: “...Over there, I paint only Canadian subjects, I dream only of Canada. The motif remains fixed in my mind, and I don't allow myself to be captivated by the charms of a new landscape. In Switzerland, Scandinavia- everywhere, I recall my French Canada.”