Cobalt, 1932

Gift of the artist to Walter Cowan, Toronto By descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario

“Exhibition of Paintings by the Late Sir Frederick Banting”, Hart House, University of Toronto, February 13 - March 1, 1943

Nobel Prize winner Sir Frederick Grant Banting frequented the Arts and Letters Club when he was able to find time away from his medical career. At this club he met A.Y. Jackson in 1927, and the two quickly became friends and sketching companions. That same year, the pair travelled to St-Jean-Port-Joli, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, where Banting received his first instruction in en plein air landscape painting from the Group artist. Shortly after, in July of 1927, Banting and Jackson made a trip to the Arctic. During their two and a half month stay, the pair sketched the wide range of weather conditions and light variations of the Arctic landscape. Banting accompanied Jackson on many subsequent sketching trips, including the North shore of the St. Lawrence, Great Slave Lake and Georgian Bay. By the 1930s, Banting became one of Canada’s best known emerging artists with a keen sense of colour, light and shadow. He refined his practice, often looking to Jackson for guidance to better develop what was first a pastime, into a career. “Cobalt”, completed in 1932, demonstrates Banting’s mastery of the en plein air oil sketch. This charming work shows similarities to Jackson’s quaint winter village scenes that he often referred to as depicting “Christmas card country”. “Cobalt” reflects Jackson’s strong sense of colour and composition: the fluid, rhythmic lines of the snow juxtaposed with the dense geometry of the buildings; the rich accent colours of the yellow and green house; and the single figure dressed in red. Banting skillfully captured the quintessential Canadian winter experience of shovelling after a heavy snowfall. The small town of Cobalt is situated in the district of Timiskaming, Ontario, and currently has a population of slightly over one thousand inhabitants. Interestingly, at the time when Banting visited, Cobalt would have been a much more populous and thriving town. In the early 1900s, the area was heavily mined for silver and cobalt. By 1910, it became one of the largest producers of silver in the world, and Cobalt’s population soared to over ten thousand. Mining continued into the 1930s before it declined significantly, and since the 1980s there have been no operating mines in the area. “Cobalt” serves as an important souvenir, documenting a fleeting moment in the history of one of Canada’s important towns of yesteryear.