Spanish Sketch, 1933

Private Collection

“Exhibition of Paintings by the Late Sir Frederick Banting”, Hart House, University of Toronto, 13 February-1 March 1943, no. 41

While the trips that Sir Frederick Banting took with A.Y. Jackson throughout Canada are fairly well known and documented through their artworks, Banting’s time spent in Europe is rarely portrayed in his painting. The scientist and physician first went to Europe during World War I, where he fought in the Battle of Cambrai, France. His next major trip was in 1925, shortly after he married his first wife, Marion Robertson. The couple embarked on an extended tour of Europe together, including a visit to Stockholm, where Banting received his Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of insulin in 1923. A few small oil paintings exist from this trip, depicting the European landscape in an Impressionist style, prior to his encounter with Jackson. “Spanish Sketch” presents a rare composition of the European landscape, incorporating the teachings of Jackson and Banting’s familiarity with the work of the Group of Seven. This fine oil sketch, dating to 1933, depicts a unique view of the Spanish town in a Canadian style; the clustered buildings with slanted roofs bring to mind Jackson’s rural Quebec village paintings, and the bright blue and white sky recall the reductive and modernist approach of the Group’s landscapes.