Oak and Birch, 1920

The Artist Geneva Jackson, Kitchener, ON The Artist? Marion MacCallum, Montreal Acquired by the present Private Collection, 1981

“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. 66 “Annual Group of Seven Dinner Featuring Works of Art by Alexander Young Jackson”, The York Club, Toronto, 17 February 1999 “Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven”, Vancouver Art Gallery; travelling to the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; Art Gallery of Hamilton, 29 October 2015‒5 September 2016

A.Y. Jackson, Penetang to Florence Clement, Kitchener, postmarked 7 (?) February 1920, and 26 March 1920, in Naomi Jackson Groves fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (MG30 D351, box 95-9) A.Y. Jackson, “A Painter’s Country”, Toronto, 1958, pages 49-51 Dennis Reid, “Collector’s Canada Selections from a Toronto Private Collection,” Toronto, 1988, no. 66, reproduced page 63 Ian Thom, et al., “Embracing Canada Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven”, Vancouver/London, 2015, reproduced page 117, caption page 201 Douglas Hunter, “Jackson’s Wars: A.Y. Jackson, the Birth of the Group of Seven and the Great War”, Montreal/Kingston, 2022, pages 320-322, 332-333

After almost four years with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in England and France, A.Y. Jackson returned to Canada waiting to be sent to Siberia with the Canadian troops. For this he purchased a stock of white paint before he was finally discharged in Canada on 16 April 1919. In September he made his first visit to Georgian Bay since 1913, returning the following February, snowshoeing in from Penetanguishene to Franceville. Caught in a storm en route, he wrote to his cousin Florence Clement, “... getting in to Franceville is not easy. ... when I did get started after lunch it had got dull and cloudy, and by the time I got past the light house it started to snow ... and I decided I didn’t want a memorial exhibition until I had a few more extreme canvases, blue, green violet and yellow snow, as it is of course, but not yet realized by the general public. I waited an hour for it to clear and it only came down thicker, and as there was no road to follow, I finally ‘bout turned. It cleared up just as I got back and is trying to look pleased with itself at present. Tomorrow morning if it’s decent I’ll try again.” Weather and ice conditions were a constant preoccupation, and on 26 March he again wrote to Florence Clement. “Well I got here after writing you from Penetang ... and settled down for the winter. And it has been real Canuck stuff. My colors friz, followed by me, but now it is soft and mushy and there is only snow in the woods. ... It’s a wonderful sketching ground in winter. On sunny days it makes little difference in which direction one goes. I made a lot of sketches round Muskosh, a few on Bone Island, Burnt Island, and Portage Id., round Loon Basin.... First I snow shoed sketching, then I skated, now I walk, and soon will go in a boat. Just now you don’t know how to go. The Freddy [Channel] is open water, likewise Shadow River and Pike Channel and Bone Point. ... I’ll show you the prevailing colors up here when I return about Apl 20th if possible. You never know just what the ice will do. Most of my Siberian white has been spread on and a lot of blue.” From the simplest of motifs, young leafless oaks and a birch on the edge of the icy expanse, Jackson created a decorative arrangement recalling his pre-war Algonquin canvases and Tom Thomson’s West Wind, though in a less dramatic vein. Painted in his desired palette of “blue, green violet and yellow”, a mossy rock breaks through the snow lower left and blue shadows dance across the yellow snow. Russet and green trees on the far shore, edged in lighter blue, crown the sinuous foreground arrangement. With a surprising lightness of touch, Jackson has given us a glimpse of the beauties and joys of late winter. Jackson had a long and affectionate friendship with his aunt Geneva Jackson of Kitchener. It was she who first acquired this sketch and possibly, Jackson received it back from her estate in the early 1950s. Jackson’s popularity with his public from the 1940s resulted in numerous commissions for specific subjects, including canvases painted from earlier sketches. At an unknown date, this sketch was worked up in a canvas that Jackson identified as “From sketch made 1920”. We extend our thanks to Charles Hill, Canadian art historian, former Curator of Canadian Art at the National Gallery of Canada and author of “The Group of Seven‒Art for a Nation”, for his assistance in researching this artwork and for contributing the preceding essay.