Shipyard at Lévis, 1897, circa 1897

Haynes Art Gallery, Toronto Watson Art Galleries, Montreal, 1956 Paul Duval, Toronto, 1956 M. F. Feheley, Toronto, 1956 The Park Gallery, Toronto Dr. Lancelot Barnes, Toronto Framing Gallery, Toronto Acquired by the present present Private Collection, circa 1970

Possibly, “Oil paintings by Mr. Maurice Cullen of Paris, France”, Fraser Institute Hall, Montreal, 17 December 1897, no. 11 as “Lévis Docks from the Hill” “Maurice Cullen 1866‒1934”, Art Gallery of Hamilton; travelling to Art Gallery of Toronto; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 5 October 1956‒ July 1957, no. 13 “Impressionism in Canada: 1895‒1935”, Vancouver Art Gallery; travelling to Edmonton Art Gallery; Saskatoon Gallery and Conservatory; Confederation Art Gallery and Museum, Charlottetown; Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Toronto Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 16 January 1974‒5 January 1975, no. 6 “1855/Maurice Cullen/1934”, The Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston; travelling to Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Art Gallery of Hamilton; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Edmonton Art Gallery; Musée des beaux‒arts de Montréal, 26 September 1982‒22 January 1984, no. 12 “Collector's Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection”, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; travelling to Musée du Quebec, Quebec City; Vancouver Art Gallery; Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, 14 May 1988‒7 May 1989, no. 43 “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

Edmond Dyonnet, “Mémoires d'un artiste canadien”, Ottawa, 1968, page 67 Joan Murray, “Impressionism in Canada 1895‒1935”, Toronto, 1973, no. 6, reproduced page 22 Hugues de Jouvancourt, “Maurice Cullen”, Montreal, 1978, reproduced opposite page 10 “Artswest”, 8:6 (June 1983), reproduced page 16 “Canadian Collector”, July 1983, reproduced page 33 Sylvia Antoniou, “1866/Maurice Cullen/1934”, Kingston, 1982, no. 12, pages 12, 62, reproduced page 27 Dennis Reid, “Collector's Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection”, Toronto, 1988, no. 43, reproduced page 49 Dennis Reid, ‘Impressionism in Canada’ in Norman Broude, editor, “World Impressionism: The International Movement, 1860‒1920,” New York, 1990, reproduced page 98 A.K. Prakash, “Impressionism in Canada: A Journey to Rediscovery”, Stuttgart, 2015, page 304 Ian Thom, et al., “Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven”, Vancouver/London, 2015, reproduced page 153, caption page 200

Born in Saint John’s, Newfoundland in 1866, Maurice Cullen came to Montreal as a youth. There he studied with the sculptor Louis‒ Philippe Hébert and with a small inheritance, he travelled to Paris in 1888 to study at the Académie Colarossi and École des Beaux‒arts. Having been elected an Associate member of the Société nationale des beaux‒arts in 1895, the French state purchased his painting “Été” from the Société’s annual salon (now at the Musée de Pithiviers). The following year Cullen returned to Canada and painted at Beaupré on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence and around Quebec City, working with James Wilson Morrice in mid‒winter 1897. He exhibited four winter canvases at the 1897 Spring Exhibition at the Art Association of Montreal “Quebec from Lévis”, “In Winter Quarters”, “On the Wharf, Lévis” and “The Ship’s Dock”, subjects painted at Lévis, across the Saint Lawrence from Quebec City or on the Saint Charles River. Additional titles included in the auction of ninety‒two paintings Cullen organized in Montreal in December 1897, intended to finance his return to France, included, “In the Dockyard (Lévis)”, “Lévis Docks from the Hill” (possibly this painting), “Lévis, At Point Lévis” (2 canvases), “Early Morning, Lévis” and “At the Wharves, Lévis.” According to the memoirs of his friend Edmond Dyonnet, Cullen realized only $800 for the lot. Cullen’s painting of 1897, “Shipyard at Lévis,” depicts a National Historic Site, the yards of Davie Shipbuilding, a company founded in 1825 and still in business. Here the dockyard is viewed from the terrace above while other canvases of 1897 depict Lévis viewed from the docks or Quebec City seen from Lévis. From left to right the artist included a large ship at dock, three ships supported by logs along the quai, the winch house, boiler room and forge and the railway tracks used for loading and unloading the ships. The eye is directed from the shadow lower left, along the shore road to the houses on the cliff upper right. Red, pale oranges and mauves accent the snowy landscape from which emerge dark green firs along the cliff’s edge. Blue water emerges from the river’s ice and Beauport and the Laurentian hills can be seen on the horizon upper right below the moving clouds. Maurice Cullen’s and James Wilson Morrice’s landscapes of 1897 mark a turning point in the history of Canadian art, bringing a new light and colour to depictions of the winter landscape. These are not sites for recreation and sport as seen in the paintings of an earlier generation, but places of labour and daily life, inhabited by the artists’ contemporaries. 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.