A Laurentian Homestead, 1923 by Clarence Alphonse Gagnon

Provenance:
Johnston Art Galleries, Montreal
Watson Galleries, Montreal
Mrs. Algernon Lucas, Westmount
A.K. Prakash & Associates, Toronto (1995)
Masters Gallery, Calgary
Private Collection

Exhibited:
"British Empire Exhibition, Canadian Section of Fine Arts", Wembley Park, London, the National Gallery of Canada, 23 April-October 1924 [shown elsewhere in England and Scotland until 21 March 1925], no. 65 as "Winter in the Laurentians"
"Paintings and Sculpture by British, Russian and Canadian Artists: Graphic Art and Photography", Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, 29 August -12 September 1925, no. 274 as "A Laurentian Homestead, Winter"
"47th Annual Exhibition of the R.C.A.", Art Association of Montreal, 19 November-20 December 1925, no. 80
"Special Exhibition of Canadian Art", National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 21 January-28 February 1926, no. 40
"Exposition rétrospective de Clarence A. Gagnon R.C.A., 1881-1942 / Memorial Exhibition Clarence Gagnon, 1881-1942", Musée de la province de Québec, Quebec City, no. 35; travelling to the Art Association of Montreal, no. 35; Art Gallery of Toronto, October-November 1942, no. 39 and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 16 June 1942-January 1943, no. 35 as "Les Éboulements"
"Clarence Gagnon, 1881-1942: Dreaming the Landscape", Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Quebec City; travelling to the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, 7 June 2006-19 August 2007, no. 92

Literature:
"Canadian Section of Fine Arts, British Empire Exhibition", Ottawa, 1924, no. 65, page 14
"Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture by British, Russian and Canadian Artists: Graphic Art and Photography", Toronto, 1925, page 40
"Forty-Seventh Exhibition of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts", Montreal, 1925, no. 80, page 12
Clarence Gagnon to Dr. Euloge Tremblay, 8 November 1931
Albert H. Robson, "Canadian Landscape Painters", Toronto, 1932, page 194
François Laroche, 'Un grand artiste, Clarence Gagnon', "La Revue Populaire", Montreal, vol. 30, no. 3, March 1937, page 36, reproduced page 37 as "Petite ferme des Laurentides sous la neige"
"Exposition rétrospective de Clarence A. Gagnon, R.C.A., 1881-1942 / Memorial Exhibition Clarence Gagnon, 1881-1942", Québec, 1942, no. 35 and no. 39, page 8
"Memorial Exhibition of Paintings, Sketches, Etchings, Etc. by Clarence Gagnon, R.C.A.", Montreal, 1942, unpaginated
"Memorial Exhibitions of the Work of Clarence Gagnon, R.C.A., J. W. Beatty, R.C.A., O.S.A.", Toronto, 1942, page 6
"Memorial Exhibition, Clarence Gagnon 1882-1942", Ottawa, 1942, page 16
Hélène Sicotte and Michèle Grandbois, "Clarence Gagnon, 1881-1942, Dreaming the Landscape", Quebec City/Montreal, 2006, no. 92, reproduced pages 154 and 353
A.K. Prakash, "Impressionism in Canada: A Journey of Rediscovery", Stuttgart, 2015, reproduced page 596

Just a century ago, "A Laurentian Homestead" by the painter Clarence Gagnon publicly appeared in one of the rooms of the prestigious Palace of Arts of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, London, the first major international art event after the First World War. The thirty- four rooms of the Palace presented exhibitions that primarily focused on the development of art in Great Britain while offering space to the dominions of South Africa, Australia, Canada, India, Burma, and New Zealand. In this great art salon of the British Empire, Canada had two rooms not far from the entrance hall on the right, where 270 works created by 108 Canadian artists were deployed. “Canada is having the opportunity of measuring her art for the first time against that of the other British Dominions at the "British Empire Exhibition", and whatever may be the relative verdict, Canada will at least show that she possesses an indigenous and vigorous school of painting and sculpture, moulded by the tremendously intense character of her country and colour of her seasons.” The verdict was clear: British critics acclaimed the works of the Canadian section. The Times of London conceded that “[...] it is here in particular that the art of the Empire is taking a new turn—at any rate, there can be no question that Canada is developing a school of landscape painters who are strongly racy of the soil.” Because it had asserted its own style, young Canadian painting centered around Tom Thomson, members of the Group of Seven, Morrice, Walker, Gagnon and several other painters, thus gaining fame internationally in 1924 at Wembley.

Clarence Gagnon was no stranger to this success. He exhibited three paintings and six etchings. He also acted as a selection jury member, sponsored by the National Gallery of Canada and its director, Eric Brown. The eight men and women of the jury, all members or associate members of the Royal Academy of Canada, had opted for a bold selection, defying the dictates of outdated academicism to highlight the landscapes of the immense and diverse territories of the nine Canadian provinces. The splendid cover of the catalogue, decorated with a drawing by J.E.H. MacDonald, complemented the expressiveness of Canadian landscape scenes that visitors would discover while exploring the EE and FF rooms of the Palace of Arts.

In 1924, Clarence Gagnon had a flourishing career. The painter and engraver had been living in Paris for twenty years, where he had his studio at 9 rue Falguière in the 15th arrondissement. His journey is made up of more or less extended stays in France and Canada. His works were distinguished in Paris, in the Salons of French Artists
and of the National Society of Fine Arts, in the special exhibition dedicated to him by the Galerie Adrien Reitlinger in 1913. They circulated in London, Chicago, New York, Toronto and Montreal. As a successful etcher and painter of the Canadian winter, Gagnon attracted the admiration of collectors and the respect of authorities in the Canadian art world. During his fourth stay in Quebec, from 1919 to 1924, while he lived in Baie-Saint-Paul with his young wife Lucile Rodier, we recognize his qualities as an emissary of Canadian painting abroad. Also, he is entrusted with participating actively in organizing the two "British Empire Exhibitions" at Wembley (1924-1925) and then the "Canadian Art Exhibition" at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris (1927).

The five years he spent in Quebec were fruitful on several personal and professional levels for Gagnon. Baie-Saint-Paul is a place of intense creation, measured by the most significant number of sketches the artist created in Charlevoix. During this extended stay, Gagnon had the opportunity to travel through the entire territory, on foot in summer, on skis in winter, and sometimes aboard a boat going down the river. His painter friends Edwin Holgate, A.Y. Jackson and Albert Robinson came to join him in March 1923. This period also dates to the collaborative projects that he undertook with the artisans of the village, as well as his renunciation of commercial colours in favour of an oil paint manufactured according to his own recipes. The remarkable landscape "A Laurentian Homestead", painted in 1923, is imprinted by research and discoveries tied to this stay in Charlevoix, among his happiest memories. In a letter from 1931, Gagnon writes: “I constantly delved into my memories of the bat, which were probably the happiest days of my life... the time that I spent there will leave an imprint on my works that, I hope, will survive long after the worms have disposed of the rest of me.”

"A Laurentian Homestead" is inspired by a sketch in The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Thanks to the latter, executed in 1921, we can identify the place that inspired the painter, known as the Rang de la Misère, located on the outskirts of Les Éboulements, one of the most picturesque villages of Charlevoix. Perched at an altitude of 365 meters, it offers an extraordinary view of the St. Lawrence River and Île aux Coudres. On the other hand, poor harvests caused by recurring frosts and violent winds had so impoverished the inhabitants of this area in the 19th century that it was nicknamed “Misère” or misery. The Rang de la Misère was known to the famous ethnologist Marius Barbeau (1883-1969), where, in 1916, he discovered an unexpected wealth of music and French oral literature. A master in executing small landscape compositions and scenes from the Quebec region, Gagnon has captured a view of the mountainous location on his small wood panel. The firewood next to the thatched-roof barn alludes to a human presence. Only the two orange-vermilion doors and a few loose planks on the right warm the silent, frozen nature.

Two years later, when the painter recreated the sketch to a surface six times larger, he accentuated the impression of a low-angle view, granting two-thirds of the composition to the white mass of the uneven terrain. Gagnon raised the summit of the Laurentian mountains in the background. He imbues it with a completely different experience of the land by adding a draft horse, pulling a well-bundled inhabitant in his cart along the path marked with tree branches stuck in the snow. Compared to the sketch, he assigned a secondary role to the barn and instead emphasized the farmhouse, typically French-Canadian with its gable roof, its chimney, its paned windows and the wraparound porch.

With the smoke billowing into the sky, the icicles formed at the roof’s edge, together with the accents of orange and red, make it a comforting haven of warmth in the depths of winter.

Art critics and columnists in America and Europe have praised Clarence Gagnon’s snow scenes. The liveliness and purity of the colours that the painter meticulously developed according to Old Master traditions earned him the Trevor Prize from the Salmagundi Club of New York in 1923, for his painting "Winter in the Laurentians, Quebec", 1922 (Private Collection). "A Laurentian Homestead" portrays the mountain air covered in white clouds under a slightly hazy afternoon sky. Even if Gagnon only reserved a fifth of the composition for celestial movements, they animate the vast snow-covered surface with luminous nuances.

Of the three paintings exhibited by Clarence Gagnon at Wembley in 1924, "A Laurentian Homestead" is the most bare in formal terms. The work had been hung in one of the Canadian art rooms a short distance from his two other winter scenes, "A Quebec Village Street, Winter", 1920 (The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario) and "Heating the Oven, Winter Scene", 1923 (Private Collection). Their character, decorative motifs and very stark colours contrasted with the peaceful mood of rural life in Les Éboulements.

Following the exceptional showing in Wembley, "A Laurentian Homestead" enjoyed great visibility in several Canadian exhibitions in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa before disappearing from public life for almost two decades. It was reproduced in "La Revue Populaire" in March 1937, illustrating an article by François Laroche, an unconditional admirer who viewed Gagnon as one of the founders of the modern school of landscape in Canada. In his article, the author notes the incomparable charm and poetic softness of the painter’s luminous canvases, describing: “their qualities of sobriety, sensitive observation, intelligence and taste, their decorative beauty and their originality”. A few years later, "A Laurentian Homestead" was featured in a 1942 exhibition to commemorate Gagnon, which circulated in the major museums of Quebec and Ontario. Only sixty-two years later did the painting reemerge for public view in 2006 as part of the vast retrospective covering the remarkable legacy of Clarence Gagnon, an essential figure in the history of Canadian art.

We extend our thanks to Dr. Michèle Grandbois, Canadian art historian, for her assistance in researching this artwork and contributing the preceding essay.

For additional images and/or details related to this artwork, please visit the digital catalogue: https://rb.gy/guln5m