dated "Feb. 27" lower right; signed, titled and dated 1932 on the reverse and titled "Sunny Barbados" on the gallery label on the reverse
8.5 × 10.5 in (21.6 × 26.7 cm)
(including Buyer's Premium)
Dominion Gallery, Montreal
Private Collection, Montreal
By descent to the present Private Collection, Oakville
Paul Duval, The Tangled Garden: The Art of J.E.H. MacDonald, Scarborough, 1978, page 151
The late 1920s marked a period of industrious activity for J.E.H. MacDonald. Having earned accolades as a founding member of the Group of Seven by this time, MacDonald became increasingly occupied with his work at the Ontario College of Art and various commissions involving book design, illustrations and architectural design. MacDonald carried out yearly painting trips to British Columbia, returning with accomplished oil sketches of the Rockies. MacDonald became the Principal of the O.C.A. in 1929, and the following year, he was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy.
Following a mild stroke in late 1931, the artist travelled with his wife to Barbados, where he benefited from the warm climate during the winter months. MacDonald produced a number of oil sketches during his three-month stay, observing this new locale with his keen sense of visual structure and pattern. Sky and sea tend to dominate his landscape sketches of the period. In Surf, Barbados, bands of shifting blues undulate across the composition. Of the Barbados sketches, art historian Paul Duval wrote, “they prove, once again, MacDonald’s ability to quickly adjust to a new landscape environment...In the Barbados, as in Nova Scotia, he luxuriated in the sense of freedom he always found by the sea.”
