Alexander Young Jackson 1882 - 1974

Dominion Gallery, Montreal

Collection of a Canadian Corporation

Jackson was a painter, traveller and raconteur as well as an art pioneer.  As a founding member of the Group of Seven, he lived to see his works, once described as "the products of a deranged mind," honoured in galleries both at home and abroad.

He left a wonderful legacy to Canadians - their country, forever captured in outstanding paintings, from the foothills of the Rockies, to the awesome grandeur of the Barren Lands, the farmlands and forests of Ontario and the Atlantic coastal regions.

However, Jackson will be best remembered for his late winter and early spring paintings of the lower Saint Lawrence River region of Quebec which he started to visit in the early 1920s and continued to visit throughout his lengthy career. April Morrning After Rain is one of his illustrative examples.  The painting is typical of Jackson's style and the Group's approach, in the treatment of the melting snow on the hills with their sweeping contours.  The rail fences and the winding road lead up to the farm house, then continues to the far-off outlying buildings and distant undulating hills.

Jackson revelled in these wintry valleys that he came across.  In this fine canvas, which is more carefully thought out than an on-the-spot sketch might be, Jackson has used looser, more rhythmic brushwork and subtle colour harmonies, especially in the snow, with the reflections of the blue sky, all characters of his mature style.