A Cook at the Miners’ Camp, Whitehorse

Merritt Malloney Gallery, Toronto The Estate of a Prominent Canadian Collector

Franz Johnston had varied experience painting different regions and peoples of Canada. He was commissioned to paint the homefront during the First World War for the Canadian War Memorials Fund in 1918. Also at this time, during evenings and weekends, he sketched Ontario's Royal Canadian Air Force training camps. In the late summer of 1918, he began to travel to the wilderness of the Algoma region with fellow artists Lawren Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald and art patron Dr. James MacCallum. In 1939, Johnston was commissioned by Gilbert Labine, then-Vice-President of Eldorado Gold Mines, to fly to the Canadian Arctic to paint nature, trappers, miners and the Indigenous Peoples in all seasons. Working in 35 to 40 below-zero temperatures, he mixed his pigments with turpentine, after becoming jelly-like in consistency from the cold. When he painted he covered his hand in a lumberman's sock as a makeshift mitten. After five months, he completed over one hundred sketches. “A Cook at the Miners’ Camp, Whitehorse” offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of a miners’ camp - specifically one of the cooking staff that keeps the operation running. This five month trip in 1939 was one of Johnston's most significant experiences. Upon his return, he settled in Wyebridge, Ontario, converting the village hall into a home and studio. He continued to travel later in life to paint, including the Nipigon territory, Baie St. Paul, villages in the Laurentians and the Ottawa Valley.