- 104
Tom Thomson 1877 - 1917
Estimate
750,000 - 1,000,000 CAD
bidding is closed
Description
- Tom Thomson
- Winter Sunset, Algonquin Park
- signed lower right; initialed J.J.V. on the reverse
- oil on panel
- 21.9 by 27 cm.
- 8 1/2 by 10 1/2 in.
Provenance
Blair Laing, Toronto
A.K. Prakash & Associates Inc., Toronto
Private Collection
A.K. Prakash & Associates Inc., Toronto
Private Collection
Catalogue Note
This late sketch by Thomson shows him as we have come to know him: an artist of great skill, great passion, and a great master of visual poetry.
Not all poetry, visual or otherwise, is everyone’s cup of tea. Similarly, the purity of painting, which was Thomson’s strength when he finally found his true vocation, is not always flashy, loud, and intrusive. Sometimes it is just quietly articulate, moving, perfect in rhythm and cadence, and resonant in a firm and memorable way.
So it is in this exquisite panel of a stand of birch trees in winter. Thomson has made a simple, anonymous corner of northern bush into something exceptionable and extraordinary. It is as if, one might almost think, he really was showing us something else – about himself, perhaps, or about his reaction to a moment of insight or silence, about something meaningful he had found in the course of his solitary travels in Algonquin Park.
What is also striking about this work is that everything is so clearly defined; it is also both dense with detail and yet spacious and broad. As David Milne said of Thomson’s Northern River, ‘Just plain impossible, but he has done it, it stirs you… a complication beyond all reason.’
Not all poetry, visual or otherwise, is everyone’s cup of tea. Similarly, the purity of painting, which was Thomson’s strength when he finally found his true vocation, is not always flashy, loud, and intrusive. Sometimes it is just quietly articulate, moving, perfect in rhythm and cadence, and resonant in a firm and memorable way.
So it is in this exquisite panel of a stand of birch trees in winter. Thomson has made a simple, anonymous corner of northern bush into something exceptionable and extraordinary. It is as if, one might almost think, he really was showing us something else – about himself, perhaps, or about his reaction to a moment of insight or silence, about something meaningful he had found in the course of his solitary travels in Algonquin Park.
What is also striking about this work is that everything is so clearly defined; it is also both dense with detail and yet spacious and broad. As David Milne said of Thomson’s Northern River, ‘Just plain impossible, but he has done it, it stirs you… a complication beyond all reason.’