Untitled (Houses in a Village), circa 1933

Mrs. Mary Eleanor Mansur, Richmond, Quebec, sister in-law of the Artist Jeff Walker, Ottawa A.K. Prakash & Associates, Ltd., Toronto Peter Ohler Fine Arts Ltd., Vancouver Private Collection, Vancouver

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 months 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. “Untitled (Houses in a Village)”, completed in 1933, is a very modern composition, with simplified and flattened buildings with many colourful accents. The sky is particularly striking, painted in a deep red with a blue band in the upper right corner, contrasting with curvacious white clouds. In November of 1933, Frederick Banting attended an International Cancer Congress in Madrid, Spain, and travelled elsewhere within the country. Due to the characteristic clay tile roofing visible in this artwork, it is likely that this painting is depicting a Spanish village he encountered on this trip.