Montreal River, Algoma, 1919

The Artist Jane Stewart, Toronto, 25 October 1939 McCready Gallery, Toronto S.C. Torno, Toronto, by 1969 Acquired by the present Private Collection, 23 October 1971

“Le Groupe des Sept/The Group of Seven”, Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada; travelling to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 19 June‒31 October 1970, no. 95 “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. 65 “Annual Group of Seven Dinner featuring works by Alexander Young Jackson”, 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, 30 October 2015‒25 September 2016 as “Montreal, Algoma River”

Dennis Reid, “Le Groupe des Sept/The Group of Seven”, Ottawa, 1970, reproduced page 138 Dennis Reid, “Collector's Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection”, Toronto, 1988, no. 65, reproduced page 63 Charles Hill, ‘No Timid Play of Subtleties, but Bold and Massive Design’, in Ian Thom, et al., “Embracing Canada Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven”, Vancouver /London, 2015, page 87 (with incorrect comparative reproduction), reproduced page 114, caption page 201 as “Montreal, Algoma River”

Mid‒September 1919 A.Y. Jackson joined Lawren Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald and Frank Johnston on a trip to Algoma on the Algoma Central Railway. Harris and MacCallum had first visited this region in the spring of 1918 and had been joined by MacDonald and Johnston that fall. This was Jackson’s first trip to Algoma. The artists first painted at the Canyon at mile 113 from Sault Ste. Marie, then at Hubert (at mile 96), from where they could travel to the falls of the Montreal River (at mile 92) by handcar, and then at Batchewana at mile 80. The autumn colour had been glorious when they first arrived, but plagued by constant rain, the reds soon turned to orange and yellow and the hills to purplish grey. The artists worked closely together and in early October Jackson and MacDonald painted on a hill above the Montreal River, under varying weather conditions. In Jackson’s sketch the autumn colour is a complex arrangement of oranges, reds, browns and greens with purplish grey cliffs under an overcast sky. The striking graphic design of the body of water and surrounding land echo the curves of the hills and clouds. The paint is applied assertively in almost sculptural, patterned forms. MacDonald, not atypically, painted three oil sketches from a height near Jackson, possibly on the same day. In the oil sketch in the collection of the Art Gallery of Algoma, dramatic storm clouds roll across the sky, casting dark shadows over the water and hills. Yellow, brown foliage in the lower right curves down to the water and spit of land then rises above the foreground rocks to the looming, grey cliffs. The surrounding hills encircle the still water. In MacDonald’s study in the Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario, painted from a nearby viewpoint, the green and brown leafed trees cascade across the dense foreground rising to the brown‒ crested, purple cliff. The foreground plays a more dominant role in the composition. Paint is applied more fluidly and the blues of the water blend into the sky overhead. Under a somewhat clearer sky MacDonald painted the third oil sketch in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Oranges accent the foreground and shadows and sunlight fall across the cliff and distant hill. Clouds, no longer dark, roll across the sky above the blue waters. The patterns of light and shadow and cloud forms seen in this last sketch would be further developed in the resultant canvas, “Solemn Land”, completed one and a half years after painting on the Montreal River. The canvas was worked up from the three sketches, yet it shares the subdued tonality of the Jackson sketch and similarly enhances the graphic design of the water and surrounding cliffs. The paintings of the Group of Seven grew out of, not only a shared vision, but also constant dialogue and mutual perceptions. 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.