Landmark Works Lead Cowley Abbott’s Sale of Canadian and International Art

Gallery Network Landmark Works Lead Cowley Abbott’s Sale of Canadian and International Art Cowley Abbott's major spring sale brings together work by canonic European and iconic Canadian artists alike—we take a closer look. Cowley Abbott's major spring sale brings together work by canonic European and iconic Canadian artists alike—we take a closer look. Artnet Gallery Network ShareShare This Article This month, Cowley Abbott is staging its major spring sale Select Masterworks of Canadian and International Art, bringing together a dynamic range of pivotal figures from art history. The live sale will be held at the Globe and Mail Centre, Toronto, on Wednesday, May 27, at 7 p.m., and will trace the distinct creative landscape of Canada and pioneering international creatives. Highlights range from a unique landscape by an icon of Impressionism to an exemplary piece by a member of the Group of Seven. Here, we delve into a number of featured lots from the sale. A pioneer and icon of Impressionism alongside the likes of Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) experienced a distinct evolution and in his style and practice at the turn of the 19th century. After developing arthritis, he sought out a milder climate in the South of France, and he was deeply inspired by the natural landscapes of the region. Taking on a looser approach to composition and leaning into the experiential aspect of light and color, works like Paysage du Midi exemplify this late-career transformation. Produced in a period following a year of confinement at an asylum in Sain-Rémy-de-Provence, Homme à la Pipe: Portrait du Docteur Gachet by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) was created while the artist was under the treatment of the work’s titular doctor Paul-Ferdinand Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise. It is a remarkable testament to the artist’s life and practice—as well as the development of Modernism itself—as in the doctor’s care Van Gogh’s creative pursuits were supported alongside treatment of his mental health. Graphic and highly stylized, the piece is coveys layers of fraught emotion, translating the artist’s own psychological state through the visage of Gachet. Hailing from the American “Golden Age of Illustration,” Philip Russell Goodwin (1881–1935) was a defining figure in the collective imagination of the American West. Conjuring images of wildlife, nature, and outdoor adventure, as in Camping – Canadian Club, his depictions of archetypal frontiersman, explorers, rough riders, and the like captured imaginations and helped define the evolving American identity. His work was picked up by a number of the period’s most popular publications, and he was also tapped to create illustrations for the canonic American novel The Call of the Wild by Jack London as well as Theodore Roosevelt’s safari account African Game Trails. A pivotal figure in Canadian art history, Emily Carr (1871–1945) was perennially inspired by natural landscapes of British Columbia as well as visual culture of the region’s First Nations peoples. Made in the final decade of her life, Wind reflects the artist’s preoccupation with movement at the time and was inspired by her time spent in Albert Head on the southern end of Vancouver Island. Taking focus on the forest’s undergrowth, her loose brushstrokes and hazy rendering of the various burgeoning plants and trees capture the inimitable effect of wind moving through the vegetation. Painter Lawren Stewart Harris (1885–1970) was a founding member of the Group of Seven, an association of artists that ultimately catalyzed the development of Modernism in Canadian art. Best known for his ascetic, stylized depictions of the natural landscape, the present work highlights the artist’s unique visual understanding of light and form. While it is exemplary of Harris’s overarching style and the numerous related sketches he completed around Lake Superior, it also contains an intriguing deviation with the inclusion of the expansive panorama of the far distance, showcasing how he consistently pushed the boundaries of perspective in his practice. A student of Group of Seven member Frederick Varley and recommended by fellow member Lawren Harris for the inaugural Emily Carr Scholarship in 1947, Edward John Hughes (1913–2007) was a key figure in carrying on the Canadian art tradition in the 20th century. Dated to the first half of his career, Sooke Harbour Landscape was virtually unknown until recently, residing in a corporate collection. Produced shortly after the artist and his wife moved to an area near the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the image reveals the influence of the prior generation’s approach to color, line, and the natural world, but with a new personal, experimental flair. Cowley Abbott’s Select Masterworks of Canadian and International Art will be held Wednesday, May 17, at 7 p.m. EDT.