Bon Echo

Family of the artist By descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario

Robert Stacey and Stan McMullin, “Massanoga: The Art of Bon Echo”, Ontario, 1998, page 74

Bon Echo boasts the provincial park and the imposing cliff known as both Mazinaw Rock and Bon Echo Rock. Nestled in the narrows between the northern and southern parts of Mazinaw Lake, this vast rock formation has a steep and dramatic drop downward into the water, acting as a destination for painters and holiday goers for decades. Dr. Weston A. Price and his wife, Florence were so taken with the majesty of the rock cliff, that they named the area “Bon Echo” for its acoustic effect and established the Bon Echo Inn. Opened in the summer of 1901, it was a three-storey structure with wrap-around verandahs and fifty beds, boasting a tremendous view of the Mazinaw Rock. The inn was an instant destination and by the early 1920s a new family was in charge; ownership having passed down to Merrill Denison. A progressive man and member of the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto, Merrill associated with members of the Group of Seven, drawing both artists and writers to visit the area. The magnificent rock forms inspired several plays and many paintings by Canadian artists, from F.M. Bell-Smith to Frank Johnston, to A.Y. Jackson and Charles Comfort. Countless artists captured the rock with their paintbrush. In August of 1928, Franklin Carmichael and A.J. Casson visited Bon Echo Inn. The artists had been commissioned to create a series of oil sketches in tones of black and white for advertising purposes. The result was a brochure produced by Sampson-Matthews featuring a work by Carmichael. Stan McMullin aptly remarks on Carmichael’s design for the brochure: “The starlit Big Rock in black, pale green and three shades of blue embodies the artist’s idyllic vision of Canada as the landscape of inspiration.” Carmichael’s connection to commercial art would remain strong throughout his career, the artist spending twenty- one years of his life working as a commercial artist and designer. Carmichael’s idyllic vision of the landscape extends to this oil sketch. The confident composition in bright colours doesn’t depict the granite cliff dominating the shoreline. Instead, Carmichael has chosen to provide an expansive, almost bird’s-eye view of the inn buildings and the shoreline of Mazinaw Lake, evoking the tranquility of the area so beloved by tourists. Perhaps Carmichael worked up the sketch from watercolours or drawings saved after the 1928 expedition, wishing to revisit this mythic place with his brush. The earthy palette, strong linear details and rhythmic lines of the sketch emulate Carmichael’s graphic sensibility and his study of dualities. Carmichael continually explored in his oeuvre the contrast of light and dark and the contrast of stillness and movement within the wondrous Canadian landscape. After Carmichael passed away in 1945, it was some time before his work was recognized in solo exhibitions, the first of which took place in his birth town of Orillia, Ontario in 1961, organized by the Orillia Artist’s Guild. An important artist in the Toronto art scene where he lived for most of his career, his work was also the subject of a significant provincial touring exhibition organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1970-71, “Franklin Carmichael: paintings, water colours and prints”, which toured to eight venues.