signed twice lower right; titled on a label on the reverse
10.5 × 14 in (26.7 × 35.6 cm)
(including Buyer's Premium)
Wedding gift from the Artist to Mr. and Mrs. Morris, Ottawa, 16 October 1948
By descent to a Private Collection, Ontario
A. K. Prakash & Associates Inc., Toronto
Waddington's, auction, Toronto, 23 November 2015, lot 42
Private Collection
Possibly Fifty-Second Annual Exhibition, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Art Association of Montreal, 19 November-20 December 1931, no. 199 as St. Sauveur, Quebec
Possibly Fifty-Ninth Annual Exhibition, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Art Gallery of Toronto, 16 November-16 December 1938, no. 160 as St. Sauveur
Kathleen Moir Morris, Mabel Lockerby, Pegi Nicol and Marian Scott, Print Room, Art Gallery of Toronto, 1941 dated 1934
Mabel Lockerby, Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Kathleen Morris, Marian Scott, Art Gallery of Toronto, January 1941
Evelyn Walters, Women of Beaver Hall: Canadian Modernist Painters, Toronto, 2005, page 79
A distinguished member of the Beaver Hall Group and the Canadian Group of Painters, Kathleen Moir Morris is celebrated for her wintery Quebec and Montreal scenes. Morris’s distinctive style, characterized by simplified forms and bold colours, captures the spirit of urban and rural life during the coldest months. Painting en plein air, Morris was undeterred by the deep snow or freezing temperatures. Bundled in a fur coat, Morris often stood directly in sleigh tracks to capture snow-covered houses and churches. This direct engagement with the subject imbues an immediacy and authenticity as evidenced in her sketches.
In 1962, art critic Dorothy Pfeiffer remarked on Morris’s “sense of joie de vivre; her clever use of dabs and dashes of brilliant orange-red livens every canvas”. In Yellow House, St. Sauveur, Quebec, Morris uses the same colouring with orange-red dabs in the figure’s hat and scarf, bringing to life a scene otherwise dampened by the thick layer of snow. Morris is playful in not just her paint choice but also the handling of her brush. Thick application of white, yellow, brown and grey reduces her forms into essential elements, creating a sense of movement in this quiet scene. This simplified, yet expressive approach animates the everyday with warmth and vitality.
