Private Collection, Hamilton
By descent to the present Private Collection, Huntsville
A champion of the local landscape, Frank Shirley Panabaker built a reputation on his carefully rendered scenes of rural life in and around the Dundas Valley, Ancaster, and his home of Hamilton, Ontario. His commitment to capturing nature in all its moods and manifestations did not stop the artist from traveling farther afield, however: Panabaker’s painting expeditions also led him to nearly every Canadian province, to the Northeastern United States, and to the Bahamas. Alone or in the company of his friend and fellow painter Frank Henry Brigden, Panabaker would embark on sketching trips to the hills and waterways of Muskoka, Algonquin Park, and Haliburton, as well as the rugged shores of Georgian Bay. The oil on board studies he created from his impressions of the ephemeral effects of light and weather on the landscape would form the basis for his larger compositions, such as this depiction of a brisk and windy morning on Georgian Bay—a Canadian prospect as immediately recognizable to the viewer as it is iconic.
