signed lower right; signed, titled, dated 1927 and F.G Banting M.D. stamp (signed and dated 1941 by Lady Henrietta Banting) on the stretcher on the reverse
19 × 23 in (48.3 × 58.4 cm)
Auction Estimate:$30,000 - $40,000
Sale date:May 30, 2024
Price Realized
$60,000
(including Buyer's Premium)
Provenance
Roberts Gallery, Toronto
The Art Emporium, December 1975
Joyner Fine Art, Toronto, auction, November 26, 1985, lot 339
Private Collection, Toronto
Exhibited
“Our Visual Heritage”, WKP Kennedy Gallery, North Bay, 3-26 August, 2000
Literature
A.Y. Jackson, "A Painter's Country", Vancouver/Toronto, 1959, page 61
Nobel Prize winner Sir Frederick Grant Banting frequented the Arts and Letters Club when he was able to find time away from his medical career. At this club he met A.Y. Jackson in 1927, and the two quickly became friends and sketching companions. That same year, the pair travelled to St-Jean-Port-Joli, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, where Banting received his first instruction in "en plein air" landscape painting from the Group artist. Jackson reminisces:
“This was Banting's first experience of painting out of doors in winter time. It was March, but there was no sign of spring, and we were working in very exposed country. The winds swept from the Gulf and there was no shelter from them. Banting persisted, though it was an ordeal for him. I found him one day crouched behind a rail fence, the snow drifting into his sketch box and his hands so cold he could hardly work. He turned to me and said, 'And I thought this was a sissy game.' Later, we went to Bic and to Tobin, a little dead sawmill town; here spring found us and we painted the melting snow.”
This charming winter scene of Bic, Quebec, on the Lower St. Lawrence, would have been painted during this first sketching trip the two men embarked on together. The rhythmic lines of sky and snow covering the roofs and ground show influence from Jackson, as does the empty sled, in its reference to human presence and to “Christmas card country”, as Jackson would describe the small towns of Quebec to fellow Group of Seven member, J.E.H. MacDonald.
Shortly after this initial trip in Quebec, in July of 1927, Banting and Jackson made a voyage to the Arctic. During their two and a half month stay, the pair sketched the wide range of weather conditions and light variations of the Arctic landscape. Banting accompanied Jackson on many subsequent sketching trips, including the North shore of the St. Lawrence, Great Slave Lake and Georgian Bay.
