Onward Ranch, 1954

A gift of the artist to Vivien Cowan, British Columbia By descent to the present Private Collection, British Columbia

A.Y. Jackson, “A Painter’s Country: The Autobiography of A.Y. Jackson”, Toronto, 1958, pages 150-151 Julie Fowler, “The Grand Dames of the Cariboo: Discovering Viven Cowan and Sonia Cornwall and their intriguing friendship with A.Y. Jackson and Joseph Plaskett”, Toronto, 2013, page 124 reproduced in colour Sheryl Salloum, “Sonia: The Life of Bohemian, Rancher and Artist Sonia Cornwall 1919-2006”, British Columbia, 2015, page 81

The Onward Ranch is located sixteen kilometres south of Williams Lake, nestled between the Sugar Cane Reserve and St. Joseph’s Mission in the Cariboo region of British Columbia. Vivien Tully, a charismatic woman with a vivid interest in art purchased Onward Ranch in 1920 with her husband, Charles Cowan. The ranch became a hub for artists and attracted Canadian painters whom Vivien had befriended when enrolled at the Banff School of Fine Arts. One of these artists was A.Y. Jackson. In 1945 Vivien told him, “You’ve never been to the Cariboo. You’d better come out and paint (it) and stay at our ranch.” Jackson did indeed visit and stayed for six weeks, roaming the land around the ranch and finding new inspiration for his brush. As described in Sonia, a book about the Cowan and Cornwall family, Jackson had been expecting a ranch as seen in motion pictures films and was quickly surprised to not find cowboys herding cattle. Instead, he found a welcoming home and Vivien, a woman “of distinguished mind.” He remarked, “she had been a widow for some years. She had two charming daughters (Sonia and Dru) and was head of the local art society.” One of these daughters was Sonia Cornwall, an artist in her own right. Sonia sought advice from the venerable artist over the years, on his many visits to Onward Ranch and took encouragement on her artistic choices. This adventure to a new area of Canada and a new type of wilderness proved significant for Jackson, an artist with a very active lifestyle. In his autobiography Jackson recalls: “This was a large area of Canada that I knew nothing about, although it had been first opened up in the gold rush a hundred years ago. The Fraser River, running westward from the Rockies, swings south at Prince George and cuts its way in a great gorge through hills and mountains as far south as Vancouver. From Ashcroft on the main line of the C.P.R., the ranch was north, at 150 Mile House.” Jackson was the only member of the Group of Seven to paint numerous Cariboo landscapes, which would hang on the walls of Onward Ranch until his departure. Before leaving, Jackson would tell Vivien and her daughters to choose a painting to keep. “Onward Ranch” of 1954 was one such oil painting.