Drying Herring Roe, circa 1938

The Artist International Machines Corporation, circa 1940 Paul Duval, Toronto R.G. Cole, Hamilton Christie’s, auction, Montreal, 23 October 1975, lot 100 McCready Gallery, Toronto Acquired by the present Private Collection, November 1975

“A Century of Canadian Art”, Tate Gallery, London, 14 October–31 December 1938, no. 148 “Jock Macdonald: The Inner Landscape, A Retrospective Exhibition”, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; travelling to the Art Gallery of Windsor; The Edmonton Art Gallery; The Winnipeg Art Gallery; Vancouver Art Gallery, 4 April 1981–March 1982, no. 18 “Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection”, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; travelling to Musée du Québec, Quebec City; Vancouver Art Gallery; Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, 14 May 1988‒7 May 1989, no. 92 “The Informing Spirit: Art of the American Southwest and West Coast Canada, 1925–1945”, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg; travelling to Vancouver Art Gallery; Colorado Springs Fine Art Center; Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina, 30 January 1994–26 March 1995, no. 72 “Jock Macdonald and F.H. Varley, Friends”, 1 April–27 June 2004 “Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form”, Vancouver Art Gallery; travelling to The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 18 October 2014–7 September 2015 “Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven”, Vancouver Art Gallery; travelling to Glenbow Museum, Calgary; Art Gallery of Hamilton, 30 October 2015–25 September 2016

“A Century of Canadian Art”, Tate Gallery, London, 14 October–31 December, 1938, no. 148, unpaginated, reproduced Christie's, auction, Montreal, 23 October 1975, lot 100, reproduced page 48 as “Drying the Herrings in Indian Village” Joyce Zemans, “Jock Macdonald: The Inner Landscape, A Retrospective Exhibition”, Toronto, 1981, reproduced page 79 Joyce Zemans, “Jock Macdonald”, Ottawa, 1985, plate 15, page 45 Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection, Toronto, 1988, no. 92, reproduced page 83 Megan Bice and Sharyn Udall, “The Informing Spirit: Art of the American Southwest and West Coast Canada, 1925–1945”, Kleinburg/Colorado Springs, 1994, listed page 175, reproduced page 157, no. 72 Ian Thom, ‘The Early Work: An Artist Emerges’ in “Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form”, Vancouver/London, 2014, reproduced page 27 Ian Thom, et al., “Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven”, Vancouver/London, 2015, reproduced page 195

A leading pioneer of abstract painting in Canada, Jock Macdonald was committed to the belief that contemporary art had to be based on “20th‒century concepts about nature, space, time and motion.” He was a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters and Painters Eleven, and he established the Calgary Group. A dedicated teacher, he was a role model and mentor to several generations of artists in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario. As an artist, teacher, and activist, he had a profound influence on Canadian art. A designer by training, Macdonald immigrated to Canada in 1926 to assume the role of head of design at the newly formed Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts. It was there that he met Group of Seven member Fred Varley who introduced him to the magnificent B.C. landscape and with whom he shared a studio. Together they would hike into the mountains on sketching trips. In 1933, Varley and Macdonald left the VSDAA to create the B.C. College of Art. Steeped in contemporary theory and the spiritual nature of art, the school introduced a new modern and interdisciplinary approach to the arts. But, in 1935, in the face of the Depression, the school closed its doors. Macdonald, with his wife and young daughter, along with a BC College of Art colleague, Harry Tauber, and his partner, left Vancouver for the west coast of Vancouver Island, with the hope of eventually creating an artists’ colony there. Though he lived outside of the village of Yuquot (Nootka), Macdonald was fascinated by the local life and would draw and sketch scenes of village life and customs. Though Macdonald returned to Vancouver in 1936, when he injured his back, the Nootka retreat would be pivotal in the evolution of his work. The brilliant “Drying Herring Roe”, 1938, offers a powerful representation of the First Nations (Mowachaht) village at Nootka. In it, Macdonald, captures the spirit and the experience of village life. Writing to the director of the National Gallery of Canada, Macdonald described the work as “typically West Coast ... much purer in colour and [direct] in composition.” Painted in Vancouver in May 1938, after the artist’s return to Vancouver, Macdonald considered it the best painting he had ever made. Worried that the unfamiliar imagery would not be understood because of the unusual subject matter and the colour of the bleached herring, he explained, in some detail, the Nuu‒chah‒nulth custom of taking twenty‒foot branches from spruce and cedar trees out in canoes and submerging them in deep water close to the headlands. “In two weeks the branches are raised up, plastered with herring eggs. They are taken to the village and hung up on wires, ropes, etc. to dry out and cure in the sun. The village is festooned with masses of mimosa coloured (yellowish) hanging foliage ... branches are taken down, the eggs shaken off and packed for winter food. Eggs are boiled before eating.” The painting is striking in its organization, displaying a designer’s delight in carefully balanced areas of colour and pattern. Traditional life is central. Foregrounded is the powerful totem pole, symbol of spiritual power. (In the middle ground among the homes and reduced in size is the village church.) Colour values are even stronger than in earlier landscapes. In “Drying Herring Roe”, Macdonald creates a decorative surface pattern with the roe, integrating the foreground and the middle ground and linking the diverse compositional elements. Loosely based on sketches made on site in Nootka, this dramatic work, with its brilliant composition and colour, was conceived in the artist’s studio after his return to Vancouver, its expressive features dramatically evoking the continuing presence of the power of the old ways. The painting received immediate praise nationally and internationally. It was selected by the National Gallery of Canada for the “Century of Canadian Art” exhibition that the Gallery was organizing for London’s Tate Gallery that same year. Though Macdonald would return to themes from Nootka in later works, “Drying Herring Roe”, 1938, was the last representational canvas he painted of life in Nootka. We extend our thanks to Joyce Zemans, art historian, curator, professor at York University, former director of the MBA Program in Arts, Media & Entertainment Management at the Schulich School of Business, and curator of the exhibition: “Jock Macdonald: The Inner Landscape” (AGO, 1981) and author of several publications on J.W.G. Macdonald, for contributing the preceding essay.