Masters Gallery, Calgary
Linda Lando Fine Art, Vancouver
Private Collection, Calgary
Exhibited
“73rd Annual Exhibition”, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 14 November–7 December 1952, no. 54
Literature
Dennis Reid, “Canadian Jungle: The Later Work of Arthur Lismer”, Toronto, 1985
In 1950, the Art Gallery of Toronto held a retrospective exhibition of the work of Arthur Lismer. The exhibition travelled across the country in the following year to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the University of British Columbia Fine Arts Gallery. This occasion likely motivated the artist to take his first trip to Canada’s west coast that summer. Lismer used Galiano Island as a base, from which he explored Pender and Saltspring Islands, along with Victoria and Long Branch on Vancouver Island. Teaching at McGill University’s Fine Arts Department during this period, Lismer spent his summers on Vancouver Island for the rest of his life. During these stays, Lismer endeavoured to create enough sketches to keep him painting for the rest of the year. The coastal views and dense forests provided Lismer with distinct new subjects to work from.
“In the Forest, Vancouver Island” contains a luscious range of rich, green tones. The loosely rendered forms are highlighted with linear marks. The painter has used the blunt end of his brush to “draw” into the layers of oil paint. In a manner which has drawn comparisons to the work of Emily Carr, Lismer created a dense composition with towering trees and verdant undergrowth. The sweeping verticals dramatize the scene’s majestic natural beauty. On the subject of Arthur Lismer’s late period works, academic Dennis Reid commented; “The painting of the fifties and beyond – a confident and joyful saga of self-exploration and painterly investigation in the expression of intense nature experiences – constitutes a body of work that will someday be recognized as one of the singular accomplishments of Canadian art”.
