Summer Day, Don Valley by Frederick Horsman Varley

Provenance:
Private Collection, Edmonton

Literature:
Peter Varley, "Varley", Toronto, 1983, page 83

"Summer Day, Don Valley" was painted shortly after Frederick Varley settled in Canada. Hailing from Sheffield, England, Varley had been encouraged to seek new opportunities in Canada by his friend and fellow artist Arthur Lismer. Varley found work in Toronto as an illustrator at Grip Limited, alongside Tom Thomson and future Group of Seven members. The artist’s early years in Toronto were primarily focused on his commercial work. Peter Varley notes that following Varley’s move to Thornhill, his weekend painting trips to Toronto’s Don Valley “revitalized his interest in painting, particularly in oil, which allowed more freedom than did watercolours in searching out a landscape’s rhythms and compositional structures.” Varley’s main interest tended to centre on portraiture, and Varley’s small oil sketches at the time often featured figures in the landscape. Despite his experience with commercial work, Varley tended to avoid incorporating stylized, Art-Nouveau influenced graphic motifs in his paintings as his close colleagues had.

"Summer Day, Don Valley" appears to show the artist fully embracing and enjoying the qualities of painting with oils outdoors. A flurry of energetic brushwork fills the pictorial space, amplified by the small scale and dense composition. The vigorous, rapid paint handling has much in common with that of Varley’s close colleague Tom Thomson. Warm pinks and silvery blues convey the direct heat of the summer sun. The vitality of the two young men fishing is depicted with an economy of means. Varley’s mastery of the medium is evident in his rich, confident handling of the subject.