Private Collection, Quebec
By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto
Literature
A.K. Prakash, “Impressionism in Canada: A Journey of Rediscovery”, Stuttgart, 2015, page 321
Following a six year stay in Paris and further travels through the French countryside, in 1895 Maurice Cullen exhibited at the Salon and was the first Canadian to be offered an associate membership to the Societé nationale des beaux-arts. While overseas, Cullen spent time with James Wilson Morrice, vacationing and painting in Brittany and Venice. Despite his growing success in France, the artist chose to return to Montreal that same year. Cullen was determined to give Canadians the opportunity to appreciate the impressionist art he admired in Paris, and to portray the Canadian landscape in this preferred style.
“North River, Laurentians” showcases Cullen’s ability to adapt his impressionist approach to the Quebec wilderness. Cullen always sketched outdoors, even during the coldest months while standing in snowshoes. In 1920, Cullen built himself a studio in the Laurentians, where he favoured winter landscape subjects in Lac Caché, the Rivière du Nord and Lac Tremblant. This period was also one of experimentation with pastels, during which the artist strove to maintain separate tonalities on large-format paper without mixing his chalks. “North River, Laurentians” is an example of one of Cullen’s pastels from this time, dating to 1928, when the artist devoted himself to painting in the wilderness and had little interest in exhibiting. A glowing sky and its reflection in the water contrasts with the crisp and snowy ice floes. Describing Maurice Cullen’s later work, A.K. Prakash writes: “These compositions though repetitive in their theme, convey brooding loneliness and solitude along the winding rivers of the Quebec landscape. Cullen painted them with a transparency of colour and tone representing the different moods of nature he found in the trackless wilds of Canada.”
