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Buffalo by Frederick Arthur Verner

Artwork by Frederick Arthur Verner, Buffalo

F.A. Verner
Buffalo

watercolour, mounted to card
signed and dated 1910 lower right
7 x 9.25 ins ( 17.8 x 23.5 cms ) ( sight )

Auction Estimate: $5,000.00$3,000.00 - $5,000.00

Price Realized $4,484.00
Sale date: November 19th 2019

Provenance:
Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal
Private Collection, Ontario
Exhibited:
Views of Canada - Victorian Age Landscape Artists, Dundas Museum and Archives, Dundas, Ontario, June 19 - September 2, 2014
Literature:
Joan Murray, The Last Buffalo: The Story of Frederick Arthur Verner, Painter of the Canadian West, Toronto, 1984, pages 103 and 142
In 1909, Frederick A. Verner came back to Canada from England to visit friends in Oakville. It was during this period that the artist began to copy his earlier works, copying those that sold well, which included depictions of the buffalo. As Joan Murray remarks, “that these later buffalo paintings still have a freshness is due to the fact that for each new painting, he used his drawings in the bank.” Verner would work from his portfolio of drawings and watercolours, expanding and drawing upon earlier compositions.

The bison depicted in this period, such as “Buffalo”, stand alone as noble representations of their breed. Verner’s wife passed away in 1906 and these watercolours perhaps reflect the artist’s emotional state of mind, as “the bison gazes away from the viewer into the distance, as though seeking a companion.”

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Frederick Arthur Verner
(1836 - 1928) OSA, ARCA

HighlightsWatch Artist

Born in Ontario, Frederick Arthur Verner enrolled at London's Heatherley's Academy in 1856. He served in the British military, first in 1858 in the Yorkshire militia and then in the British Legion in 1860. Two years later, Verner returned to Canada and worked as a photograph colourist, but spent the majority of his time sketching the wilderness and Indian tribal communities in his area. He co-founded the Ontario Society of Artists in 1872 and exhibited regularly with the group until he moved to England in 1880. His romantic Native American genre scenes had gained tremendous popularity overseas. Verner continued to paint in this style, returning to Canada every so often to gain source material.