Literature
Ian Thom, "E. J. Hughes", Vancouver, 2003, page 108
Jacques Barbeau, "A Journey with E. J. Hughes: One Collector’s Odyssey", Vancouver/Toronto, 2005, page 15
In 1947 E. J. Hughes was awarded the Emily Carr scholarship by Lawren Harris. This award provided the means for him to take a reconnaissance trip on the CPR steamship "Princess Adelaide" to investigate possible painting subjects.
The 290 foot long "Princess Adelaide" was the first and the largest of the Princess steamships, built in 1919. The artist boarded the ship in Victoria for a week-long trip to Prince Rupert along the Inside Passage.
Working from a moving vessel was not ideal for Hughes, who was prone to seasickness. Even so, the practice which he had refined as a Canadian war artist – field notes and pencil sketches - provided what he would need in his studio. Later, in 1952, while living at Shawnigan Lake, Hughes acquired a photograph of the "Princess Adelaide" from the Canadian Pacific Steamships company. Combining this with his sketch of Grenville Channel, he developed a full tonal rendering in preparation for the ultimate oil painting. This detailed study, which he called a cartoon, is here offered for sale for the first time in more than half a century. The repeated refinement of the image is what gives to Hughes’s paintings their iconic force.
The resulting oil painting, "Steamer in Grenville Channel, B.C.", 1952 is now the centrepiece of the Barbeau Foundation’s collection displayed at the Audain Museum in Whistler.
On May 13, 1952 Max Stern, Hughes’s exclusive dealer, wrote to the artist: “I received today your painting 'Steamer in Grenville Channel' and like it very much, especially the design of the boat with its details, its charming figures and the view which leads us very far into the picture.”
In his book which accompanied the Hughes retrospective exhibition in 2003, Ian Thom wrote: “'Steamer in Grenville Channel' (1952) is a visionary painting that employs light in a way that is almost baroque. The boat itself is brilliantly lit against a brooding dark hillside. This light has a revelatory quality to it... This painting has a power that is quite beyond the conventions of the standard marine piece.”
Jacques Barbeau, who owned the oil painting which resulted from this fine drawing, described it as “a truly majestic painting. It is undoubtedly the most arresting of all the ferry series. It commands respect. It is more than just a grand depiction of a small sturdy ship confronting the harsh and sombre coastal waters. It hints at mysticism.”
Other stages in the evolution of this image can be found in E. J. Hughes "Paints British Columbia" (TouchWood Editions, 2019) and "The E. J. Hughes Book of Boats" (TouchWood Editions, 2020), both by Robert Amos.
We extend our thanks to Robert Amos for contributing the preceding essay. Robert is the official biographer of E. J. Hughes and is compiling the catalogue raisonné of this artist’s work.
