At a Lobster Fishery (Bay Chaleur), 1880

Canadian Fine Arts, Toronto Acquired by the present Private Collection, August 2007

“Canadian Academy of Arts, First Annual Exhibition”, Clarendon Hotel, Ottawa, 8‒19 March 1880, no. 53 as “At a Lobster-Fishery (Bay Chaleur)” priced at $100 “Special Exhibition of the Works of Canadian Artists Including Diploma Pictures, &c., from the Recent Exhibition of the Canadian Academy of Arts, Ottawa”, Art Association of Montreal, from 14 April 1880, no. 23 as “At a Lobster Fishery” “Ontario Society of Artists Eighth Annual Exhibition”, Society’s Galleries, Toronto, May 1880, no. 51 as “At a Lobster Fishery” priced at $75 “Embracing Canada Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven”, Vancouver Art Gallery, travelling to the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; Art Gallery of Hamilton, 30 October 2015‒25 September 2016

‘Academy of Arts’, “The Globe” (Toronto), 9 March 1880, page 3 ‘The First Exhibition of the Canadian Academy of Arts’, “Canadian Illustrated News”, XXI:17 (24 April 1880), reproduced page 265 as “Lobster Fishing” ‘Ontario Society of Artists’, “The Globe” (Toronto), 19 May 1880, page 10 Dennis Reid, “Our Own Country Canada, Being an Account of the National Aspirations of the Principal Landscape Artists in Montreal and Toronto 1860-1890”, Ottawa, 1979, page 335 Kathryn L. Kollar, “John Arthur Fraser (1838-1898)” (M.A. thesis, Concordia University, 1981), pages 56, 63, 159 notes 7-8, 233 as unlocated Evelyn McMann, “Royal Canadian Academy of Arts/Académie royale des arts du Canada”, Toronto 1981, page 137 Evelyn R. McMann, “Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, formerly Art Association of Montreal Spring Exhibitions 1880-1970”, Toronto, 1988, page 134 Ian Thom, et al., “Embracing Canada Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven”, Vancouver/London, 2015, reproduced page 49, caption page 200

Born in London of Scottish parents in 1838, John Fraser came to Canada in 1858, first settling in Stanstead, Quebec. By 1860 he was listed as an artist in the Montreal street directory and was soon working for the renowned photographer William Notman. In 1868 he partnered with Notman to form Notman and Fraser Photographers in Toronto where the first exhibition of the newly established Ontario Society of Artists, of which Fraser was vice-president, was held in April 1873. The mid-nineteenth century Canadian landscape movement was intimately linked to the development of the railways. In 1876 the Intercolonial Railway opened the final portion of its new line between Rivière-du-Loup and Halifax, enabling tourists and artists to travel by rail from Montreal to the mouth of the Restigouche River in New Brunswick. In October 1877 John Fraser painted on the Baie des Chaleurs. Given the demands of his Toronto businesses Fraser had little time to paint and at least seven of his twelve submissions to the first exhibition of the Canadian Academy of Arts in Ottawa in March 1880 (becoming Royal Canadian Academy that summer) were worked up from his Maritime sketches of 1877. The writer in Toronto’s Globe praised “At a Lobster Fishery (Bay Chaleur)”. “This picture is one of those beautiful compositions of sea, land and sky in which Mr. Fraser seems to excel. The water is clear, liquid, and full of motion, though not turbulent, while the beach, sky, and clouds are all strong and full of meaning, as if painted with a purpose to express an idea rather than to make up a picture.” And when the painting exhibited in Toronto in May, the Globe’s writer again enthused, “ Mr. J.A. Fraser shows two companion pictures of medium size but far more than medium merit. They are both marine pieces, the 'Lobster Fishery' being the more attractive and characteristic of the two. Mr. Fraser excels in depicting rocks and water....” As in his smaller canvas, Study for “A Seaside Idyll” of 1877 (sold Cowley Abbott, 1 December 2022, lot 137), the foreground shore curves from the lower right to the buildings at the left, then to the upper right, framing the open water. The woman standing on the beach casts her gaze across the water to the moored sailboats drawing the viewer’s eye to the distant hills, most likely Tracadiegash Mountain in Gaspé viewed from near Port Dalhousie. The foreground is strewn with seaweed-covered rocks, logs, lobster traps and boats and punctuated by the slow-moving figures. Fraser’s characteristic sensitivity to the light, colour and mood of a particular time of day is once again evident in this canvas. 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.