Eastern Arctic, 1930

Joseph McCulley, Toronto H.V. Ross, Toronto Joyner Waddington's, auction, Toronto, 2 December 2003, lot 53 A.K. Prakash & Associates, Toronto Masters Gallery, Calgary Private Collection

Possibly "Arctic Sketches by A.Y. Jackson", Hart House, University of Toronto, November 1930, no. 4 as "Neerke, Greenland" Possibly "Arctic Sketches by A.Y. Jackson, R.C.A. & Lawren Harris", National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 26 November–8 December 1930, no. 4 as "Neerke, Greenland" Possibly "Arctic Sketches by Lawren Harris and A.Y. Jackson, R.C.A.", Art Gallery of Toronto, from 1 May 1931, no. 357 as "Nerke, Greenland" "A.Y. Jackson," Arts & Letters Club, Toronto, from 3 October 1972

Library and Archives Canada, Naomi Jackson Groves Fonds, MG 30 D351, Container 52, file 13, A.Y. Jackson’s Arctic Diary 1930, and Container 69-21 Inventory Binder Arctic 1930 A.Y. Jackson, "A Painter’s Country," Toronto, 1958, pages 98, 105-108 Dennis Reid, "Le Groupe des Sept/The Group of Seven", Ottawa, 1970, pages 231-234, 237-240 "A.Y. Jackson The Arctic 1927", Moonbeam, Ontario, 1982, unpaginated, plate 58 David Silcox, "The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson", Toronto, 2003, page 390

A.Y. Jackson’s trips to the Arctic in 1927 and 1930 are key moments in the artist’s life-long exploration of Canada’s many landscapes. On both trips he travelled on the Canadian government supply boat, the "Beothic". In 1927 he was accompanied by Dr. Frederick Banting and in 1930 by fellow artist Lawren Harris. The first voyage resulted in a large number of drawings, oil sketches and several canvases, one of which, "North Shore, Baffin Island" (also exhibited as "Eskimo Village"), acquired by Toronto’s East York Collegiate in 1928, depicted an encampment of tents, houses, dogs and Inuit on a rise in the foreground with an expansive view of the hills of Bylot Island across ice-strewn water. As Jackson later wrote, “Since our time at any of our stopping places was, of necessity, limited, we got into the habit of making notes [i.e. drawings] while ashore. When we were at sea again we made paintings from these notes in our cabin.” This canvas was worked up from a drawing (reproduced as plate 58 in "A.Y. Jackson The Arctic" 1927) made at Pond Inlet in Northern Baffin Island on 16 August 1927 and from an oil sketch (sold at Heffel Fine Art Auction House, 23 May 2007, lot 146a), possibly painted from the drawing in the artists’ cabin. The first part of Jackson’s second trip north followed much the same route as in 1927, but ice and fog were constant variables. The ship’s stop at Pangnirtung on the east coast of Baffin Island resulted in a good number of drawings and the canvases "Summer, Pangnirtung Baffin Island" (McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1979.26.4) and "Eskimo Summer Camp, Pangnirtung". These paintings rework the composition of the earlier "North Shore, Baffin Island", with a foreground encampment, a body of water in the middle ground and distant hills, as does the oil sketch offered here. But "Eastern Arctic" was not painted at Pangnirtung but, as Naomi Jackson Groves has noted, at Nerck (or Nerke) on Robertson Bay or Fjord in Northern Greenland. As Jackson wrote in his autobiography, "A Painter’s Country", from the first northern stop at Godhavn, the Beothic headed north to Ellesmere Island then followed the Greenland coast south where Jackson “saw a noble range of big reddish-violet hills covered by glaciers standing in relief against warm grey skies. We called at Nerck ... an old settlement of stone igloos...”. Most striking are the dramatic glaciers discharging from the Greenland ice sheet across the water. This composition also began in a drawing, now in the Firestone Collection at the Ottawa Art Gallery, dated 16 August 1930, three years to the day after Jackson drew the Pond Inlet study for "North Shore, Baffin Island". Another, more detailed preliminary drawing sold at Joyner Waddington’s in Toronto, 2 December 2003, lot 54 together with this oil sketch. Jackson’s affectionate depiction of the tents, dogs and family group, painted in earth tones with accents of blue and a rollicking rhythm, contrasts strikingly with Lawren Harris’ oil sketch of Nerke (inscribed on the back "Robertson Bay, Greenland" and "Nerke, Greenland North") that he gave to Emily Carr in November 1933 and that is now in the collection of the University of Alberta. Harris’ sketch is an intellectual construct, devoid of human life. The reddish violet hills are colder, as are the grey sky and clouds. In both works the glaciers flow into the sea. Harris worked up his sketch to paint the canvas "Greenland Mountains" (National Gallery of Canada, 4279). "Eastern Arctic" was formerly in the collection of Joseph McCulley, who was warden of Hart House from 1952 to 1965, and was subsequently acquired by Arts and Letters Club member Harry Ross, who, in 1964 (Groves) or 1965 (Silcox), asked Jackson to paint a canvas from this 1930 sketch. That canvas sold with the drawing and oil sketch at Joyner Waddington’s in Toronto on 2 December 2003, lot 52. Ross loaned two untitled canvases and two untitled sketches, most likely including this sketch and the canvas, to the A.Y. Jackson exhibition celebrating the artist’s ninetieth birthday, at the Arts and Letters Club in 1972. 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.