Burch's Store, 1916 by David Brown Milne
David Milne
Burch's Store, 1916
watercolour
titled on a label on the reverse; catalogue raisonné no. 107.28
11 x 15 in ( 27.9 x 38.1 cm ) ( sheet )
Auction Estimate: $20,000.00 - $30,000.00
Price Realized $33,600.00
Sale date: November 27th 2024
Estate of the Artist, 1996
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
"Centenary Exhibition", Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, 1982, no. 4 as "Burche's Store"
"David Milne, Boston Corners", Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, 1988, no. 11
Paul Caulfield, "A Path of His Own: The Story of David B. Milne", film, 1979
David Milne Jr. and David P. Silcox, "David B. Milne: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume 1: 1882-1928", Toronto, 1998, reproduced page 167, no. 107.28 as "Burch's Store"
Katharine Lochnan (ed.), "David Milne Watercolours: Painting toward the Light", Toronto, 2005, pages 53-56
The move to Boston Corners proved very well-suited to Milne’s preference for isolation, offering the artist closeness to nature, plenty of time to paint, and a break from the grinding bustle of New York. Re-invigorated creatively, Milne embarked on one of the most productive and experimental periods of his career. Art historian Carol Troyen noted; “The watercolours he made over the next decade were highly experimental, pushing the medium well beyond conventional practice, and were even more original than anything he had achieved in the feverish atmosphere of modernist New York.”
Boston Corners comprised of only a small number of buildings: a railway station, freight depot, church, school house, a few houses, and Charles Burch’s general store. Milne’s depiction of the store utilizes a dense composition which fills the pictorial space, with areas of white paper rhythmically dispersed throughout. Omitting a clear horizon line, Milne bisects the picture with the bold horizontal of the railway, creating visual structure. Paint has been applied opaquely, eschewing traditional watercolour technique of thin, layered washes. Milne has also experimented by radically limiting his palette to only sap green and black. Details such as the building’s outside stairway have been described with a few simple lines. “Burch’s Store” exemplifies Milne’s enthusiastic and experimental output of the period.
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David Brown Milne
(1882 - 1953) Canadian Group of Painters
Milne was born near Paisley, Ontario. A childhood interest in art, which revived while he was teaching, led him to take a correspondence course and eventually he travelled to New York City to continue his studies. This was somewhat of an exception in the early twentieth-century Canadian art scene as the majority of artists went to Europe to study. While in New York City, Milne worked as a commercial illustrator for several years before deciding to give up this work and devote his time to painting. Shortly after making this decision he moved to Boston Corners in New York.
Throughout his life Milne sought the peace and solitude of a rural life. In his paintings, Milne explored different viewpoints. He greatly admired the work of Tom Thomson but had little interest in the nationalistic approach of the Group of Seven. His themes range from landscapes to views of towns and cities, still lifes and imaginary subjects. His experiments with different media and changing viewpoints show his interest in the process of painting itself. In 1929, Milne returned to settle permanently in Canada, stopping for brief periods in Temagami, Weston, and Palgrave. He built a secluded cabin at Six Mile Lake, north of Orillia, and spent the next six years painting, for the most part, alone. Milne was interested in 'pure' painting, in "adventures in shape, colour, texture and space" as he called his watercolours of the 1930s and 1940s. The change from the less vibrant drybrush "adventures" to the fantasy watercolours is often attributed to the birth of his only child, David Jr., born to Milne's second wife when Milne was sixty. His young son encouraged him to adopt a new, vibrant and often whimsical approach to his art. Milne spent the rest of his life in Uxbridge, north of Toronto, exploring the Haliburton and Bancroft areas as well as the city of Toronto.
