Senior Specialist Anna Holmes discusses Sooke Harbour Landscape by E.J. Hughes

Sooke Harbour Landscape of 1951 is an exciting discovery among the paintings of Edward John Hughes. Created in his early period immediately after his discovery by Dr. Max Stern of the Dominion Gallery, it was soon sold and has remained essentially unknown in a corporate collection ever since.

Edward John Hughes Sooke Harbour Landscape

The painting comes from an integral period in Hughes’ life. As soon as Hughes was demobilized after his work as a war artist, he was granted the Emily Carr Trust, a scholarship for British Columbia artists, and was awarded $1,200.

In the spring of 1947 Hughes used some of that money to travel up the B.C. coast to Prince Rupert on the CPR ship, Princess Adelaide. The trip resulted in some useful sketches, but Hughes found that travelling on ship was not satisfactory for his purposes. The ship rarely stopped long enough for him to sketch, and he found the presence of the other passengers intrusive.

In May of 1948, Hughes and his wife Fern, moved to a small house in the Fernwood area of Victoria. As soon as they were settled, the artist took off for a two-week expedition to Sooke, a small community 35 kilometres west of Victoria along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Every day a Vancouver Island Coach Lines bus made a round trip to Jordan River, beyond Sooke along the southern coast of the island. It was a gravel road at the time and provided access for the logging operations and other construction projects which were active in the region.

This trip was to be a test for Hughes, to see how he would get along travelling by bus and setting up for a week or two in a single location. This was the only time Hughes sketched at Sooke.

Hughes was in the Sooke Harbour area for about two weeks, staying at the Sunny Shores Auto Court at Saseenos. Five tiny cabins dating from 1942 when the campground was established are still standing at the water’s edge. Since the artist had no car, he walked from there to all his sketching sites. From Sunny Shores, Hughes could hike along the rail line which curved around the Sooke Basin, and a range of prospects opened to him from positions above the shoreline.

Sunny Shores Auto Court, Saseenos, B.C., 2015

At least thirteen pencil sketches resulted from his time here, from which he painted oils and watercolours for years to come. Hughes also created three small oils on wooden panels on location.

Like Sooke Harbour Landscape, the majority of Hughes’ sketches and paintings made during his two weeks in Sooke focus on Coopers Cove, a quiet basin close at hand to Sunny Shores. It was named by members of the Royal Navy survey which sailed the waters in 1846.

A graphite drawing of Sooke Harbour Landscape, 1948.

The painting shows a log boom on the left. What appears to be a few fallen logs on the shore were the Phillips log dump. Above the shore on the left is the railway line and on the hillside above is a slash pile of leftovers from the logging operation. Rising in the distance are the hills of Mount Quimper.

Unlike the Group of Seven, Hughes did not romanticize the unpeopled wilderness, nor did he celebrate the industrial might of Canada’s development. He simply looked at what was in front of him and did his best to assemble the forms and colours into a work of art. The rhythmic disposition of the shapes and the beautiful harmonies of tone and colour have come together in Sooke Harbour Landscape to create a deeply satisfying painting of the west coast shoreline.

A map of the coastline showing the location of Sooke Harbour.

After his two-week stay at Sooke, Hughes looked forward to his summer of sketching with confidence. In June, he made day trips to Sidney north of Victoria and then planned a major adventure travelling up the east coast of Vancouver Island as far north as Courtenay. The drawings which he made on that trip were the foundation of his future career. 

Cowley Abbott is pleased to have been entrusted with this painting by E.J. Hughes and we look forward to presenting the artwork in our previews in Calgary, Montreal and Toronto, ahead of the May 27^th Spring Live Auction.