Exhibited
“30th Spring Exhibition, Art Association of Montreal”, 26 March‒19 April 1913, no. 64
Possibly “Paintings by W.H. Clapp, A.R.C.A.”, Arts Club, Montreal from 7 February and Johnson Art Galleries, Montreal, 27 February‒28 March 1914, no. 98 as “The Waterfront at Berthier”
Literature
Albert Laberge, ‘Ouverture de l’exposition de peintures à la galerie des arts’, “La Presse” (Montreal), 26 March 1913
Evelyn R. McMann, “Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, formerly Art Association of Montreal Spring Exhibitions 1880-1970”, Toronto, 1988, page 69 as “Old house, Berthier”
A.K. Prakash, “Impressionism in Canada: A Journey of Rediscovery”, Stuttgart, 2015, reproduced page 531 as “Berthier, Quebec”
Born of American parents in Montreal in 1879, William Clapp moved with his family to Oakland, California in 1885. He returned to Montreal in 1900 to study with William Brymner at the Art Association of Montreal. Fellow students included Clarence Gagnon and Henri Hébert and the three artists moved to Paris in the fall of 1904. There Clapp studied at the Académies Julian and Colarossi and the École de la Grande Chaumière. French and Spanish subjects were included in his submissions to the Art Association of Montreal’s Spring Exhibition in March 1908 when he shared the Jessie Dow Prize with Helen McNicoll. His winning painting, “Morning in Spain”, was purchased by the National Gallery of Canada.
In the catalogue of the 1909 Ontario Society of Artists exhibition Clapp’s address was given as 255 Bleury Street, a building owned by the sculptor G.W. Hill and where Edmond Dyonnet also lived. Clapp quickly moved into the milieu of the leading senior Montreal artists, painting at Philipsburg, where Maurice Cullen held the landscape classes of the Art Association of Montreal’s school, and at Saint Eustache, where William Brymner and Cullen had constructed a studio in 1905. His painting “The New Church” (National Gallery of Canada), shown in the 1910 Spring Exhibition, depicts the church of Saint Eustache.
In 1912 both Edmond Dyonnet and Clapp painted at Berthier (now Berthierville) on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence, between Trois-Rivières and Montreal. Dyonnet exhibited “Early Morning, Berthier” at the Royal Canadian Academy in November 1912 and “Country Road, Berthier” in the 1913 Spring Exhibition. The latter (sold Pinney’s, Montreal, 6 December 1988, lot X176) was illustrated in “The Yearbook of Canadian Art 1913” published by Toronto’s Arts and Letters Club. Clapp’s submissions to the same exhibition included the painting presented here, “Old Houses, Berthier” and it attracted the attention of Albert Laberge, sports and arts writer for the newspaper “La Presse” and the most sympathetic critic to the new generation.“The works by the so-called colorists‒Alex Jackson, Randolph Hewton, Albert H. Robinson, Arthur D. Rosaire, W.H. Clapp, Clarence Gagnon, among the youths, and Maurice Cullen, Suzor-Côté and a few others among the veterans, are the most remarkable and form the highlight of this year’s Salon. ... The old houses of Berthier, a painting in a grey note ... are a beautiful piece of painting, enough to tempt the connoisseurs.”
Laberge’s characterization of the painting as a being in a tone of grey is very apt. However it ignores the subtle play of blues, mauves, yellows, whites and greens and the animated brushwork used to depict the wooden balcony of the frame house with its metal chimney projecting upper right, the boards supporting the dock, the ladder and boat and foliage at right and left. It’s as if a mist veiled this delicate vision of a summer day in the village of Berthier.
Following a common practice among artists, Clapp recycled the original frame from Old Houses, Berthier, installing it on another canvas of the same dimensions, “Rio Nuevas, Cuba”, that was purchased by the National Gallery in 1915. An old label inscribed, “Old Houses, Berthier, W.H. Clapp, 255 Bleury St., Montreal,” can be found of the back of the frame on “Rio Nuevas, Cuba”.
Clapp’s career had taken off with remarkable rapidity. He had been elected an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in November 1911, a member of the Canadian Art Club in 1912 and a member of Montreal’s Pen and Pencil Club in March 1913. His works were included in the exhibition of Canadian art at New York’s McDowell Club in March 1913 together with paintings by J.W. Beatty, William Brymner, Maurice Cullen, Clarence Gagnon, Wyly Grier, Lawren Harris, C.W. Jefferys and J.E.H. MacDonald, and from 27 February to 28 March 1914 he had a solo exhibition at the Arts Club of Montreal and subsequently at Johnson’s Art Galleries in Montreal. That exhibition included subjects from Spain, France, Phillipsburg and Berthier and this painting might have been included under the title “The Waterfront at Berthier” at $125, the same price he had asked in the 1913 Spring Exhibition.
Canada rallied to Britain’s side and declared war against Germany in September 1914. Male artists had to confront the decision to enlist or not, but as an American citizen Clapp was not under the same obligation, and by the spring of 1915 he had moved to Cuba, where he would remain for two years. Nancy Boas, author of “The Society of Six California Colorists” (San Francisco, 1988, page 50), in which Clapp figures prominently, writes that the catalyst for the move was the purchase by the artist’s father of a pineapple plantation at Isle of Pines in Cuba, rather than the war. By 1917 Clapp had moved back to California, becoming curator of the art gallery in Oakland the following year. In the 1930s he would exhibit in Montreal once again, at Watson Art Galleries.
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.
