Ungava Bay, 1927

Catherine Rosaline Jackson (artist’s sister) or Coralie Ruth Jackson (artist’s sister-in-law), Montreal Private Collection, Toronto Phillips-Ward Price, Toronto, April 27, 1982, as 1930, Lot 85 David Ariss Fine Art, St. John’s, Newfoundland Private Collection, Newfoundland

A.Y. Jackson, ‘Up North’, “The Canadian Forum”, VIII:87 (December 1927) pages 478-80 F.G. Banting, ‘With the Arctic Patrol’, “Canadian Geographical Journal, I:1” (May 1930) pages 19-30 A.Y. Jackson, “A Painter’s Country”, Toronto, 1958, pages 93-100 Dr. Frederick Banting, ‘Diary and Drawings of Eastern Arctic Expedition 1927, with A.Y. Jackson’, “Northward Journal”, 14-15, 1979, pages 25-35 Naomi Jackson Groves, “A.Y. Jackson The Arctic 1927”, Moonbeam, Ontario, 1982, plate 78, text reference unpaginated

During a debate with A.Y. Jackson at Toronto’s Empire Club in February 1925, the painter Wyly Grier contended, “our friends of the Group of Seven … continually go further north … and I dare say that they will emerge at the North Pole some day.” Indeed A.Y. Jackson’s trip to the eastern Arctic in 1927 was a logical extension of his constant exploration of Canada’s many landscapes that had already seen him paint from Halifax, Nova Scotia to the Skeena River in British Columbia. Accompanied by Dr. Frederick Banting, co-discoverer of insulin and an amateur artist, the two artists left North Sydney, Cape Breton on 16 July 1927 on the Canadian government supply ship, the “S. S. Beothic”. Their first stop was at Godhavn, Greenland, continuing further north to the Bache Peninsula and southwest to Lancaster Sound where their passage was blocked by ice. O.S. Finnie of the Department of the Interior, later wrote that the weather in 1927 had been “the worst in all our experience.” Returning eastward the ship rounded Baffin Island and travelled west through the Hudson Strait to Lake Harbour “which lay in lovely, almost pastoral country with gentle sloping hills and many shallow lakes…. We very much regretted leaving there,” Jackson wrote in his autobiography “A Painter’s Country”. Their last stop was Port Burwell on the east tip of Ungava Bay. Then part of Labrador, Port Burwell is now part of Nunavut, though Jackson also exhibited oil sketches titled “Port Burwell, Quebec”. “It was a depressing place, cold and foggy, with rocky hills and the sea breaking on miles of granite coast.” Jackson was more descriptive in his diary. “30 August. Heavy fog, had difficulty finding Port Burwell…. got into Burwell about 3 p.m. interesting rock. H.B. Post, Air Station, old Moravian Mission… country very broken up, full of lakes, big granite boulders lying everywhere. good cod fishing. cold and bleak. scantier vegetation than Lake Harbour, Pangnirtung or Pond Inlet. … Wednesday August 31st. Went ashore with Banting, made sketch. color very interesting – ice on pools in rocks, big sea pounding on the coast, had to return to steamer at eleven, left after lunch.” Given the difficulty of making visual records on a moving ship travelling past moving icebergs much of Jackson’s production consisted of rapidly drawn graphite drawings. Landings were brief as the artists had to be attuned to the whistle of the ship, always fearful of being caught in the ice. Two drawings of Port Burwell are illustrated in Naomi Jackson Groves’ book “A.Y. Jackson The Arctic 1927” (plate 78). Below the drawings Jackson wrote some observations for developing the drawings in paint, “foreground bold rich. sparkle of light & shadow middle. rock more luminous. less dead greys greens etc. lighter. giving more contrast to violet of rocks. distance in shadow. more fantastic richer design of water and surf,” “foreground rock, luminous reds, violets pale blue & greens cool, grass lighter gold giving richer contrast. hills beyond lake bold yellow greys & browns distance not very blue but separating from middle distance.” Jackson wrote in his diary on September 1st after leaving Port Burwell, “Labrador in extreme distance this AM, out of sight of land since, sea quiet, weather mild, made 2 sketches.” “Ungava Bay” was probably painted on 1 September in his cabin from the compositional drawing. The oil sketch’s subtle arrangement of browns, purples and greys is highlighted by the blue in the foreground rocks and yellow-greens of the foliage in the middle ground. In light of his affection for Lake Harbour and apparent antipathy for Port Burwell, it is surprising that Jackson’s largest canvas resultant from this 1927 Arctic voyage was a landscape of Port Burwell. Labrador Coast was painted from the oil sketch, “Ungava Bay”, and was first shown in the “Exhibition of Paintings by Contemporary Canadian Artists” sponsored by the American Federation of Arts that opened at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington in March 1930. Though radically altered, the canvas retains the basic configuration of the landscape depicted in the sketch. In the canvas the foreground rocks are more sculptural and the water lower left more defined. The middle ground has become a rhythmic pattern of interlocking curves that flow into the more prominent background hills. Flowing clouds crown the composition, echoing the design of the rocks. Painted in a higher key, the subtlety and intimacy of the oil sketch has been transformed into a massive, bold design. A key figure in the history of the Group of Seven, Jackson’s career is marked by a number of major paintings such as Labrador Coast, the largest canvas from his first Arctic voyage. An outstandingly beautiful sketch in itself, linking the oil sketch to the canvas enable us to better understand both his vision of the Arctic landscape and his working method. We extend our thanks to Charles Hill, Canadian art historian, former Curator of Canadian Art with the National Gallery of Canada and author of “The Group of Seven - Art for a Nation”, for his assistance in researching this artwork and for contributing the preceding essay.