York Mills, circa 1919

Private Collection, Ontario

Possibly the work exhibited at the Royal Canadian Academy in 1925, recorded as “York Mills”, no. 135

Kevin Forrest, The Paintings of Frederick Nicholas Loveroff, Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, 1981, pages 13 and 17

In 1924 Loveroff participated in the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, including a work entitled “Snow on the Hillside”, circa 1919, that won him notoriety when the Leicester City Art Gallery purchased the painting. According to Michael Parke-Taylor, there is only one small pencil and tempera sketch known in relation to “Snow on the Hillside”. “Sketch for Snow on the Hillside” (Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd A. Loveroff) acts as a preparatory work for the canvas, exhibiting the artist’s initial attempt to capture the effects of sunlight and shade on snow. Loveroff was a keen observer of the landscape and as one Scottish critic noted after the Wembley exhibition, “His solid tree trunks are actualities, and so is the snow in his wood interior, which is as true as the sunlight and shadow on the snow in his Hillside”. “York Mills” is markedly similar to “Snow on the Hillside” and appears to be another preparatory work undertaken for the canvas, having been possibly exhibited in 1924 at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts exhibition. This work shares Loveroff’s attention to the atmospheric conditions, which is a stylistic adaptation of the Impressionist practice brought home to Canada by the Montreal artists, Maurice Cullen and Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, both of whom Loveroff would have been aware. “York Mills” depicts Loveroff’s study of this landscape at various hours of the day, expressing the fleeting light of day and shifting temperature through the violet hues of the sky and the frozen crispness of the snow.