Masters Gallery
2115 4th St SW T2S 1W8 Calgary, AB, Canada

Laura Pope Watercolours From Home May 13th - 20th, 2021 View Exhibition Online: ... https://www.mastersgalleryltd.com Book an Appointment to View: [email protected] or 403-245-2064 As Alberta’s 100th anniversary was approaching in 2005, Laura Pope was inspired to mark the milestone with a series of watercolours that would depict the many places, locations, and landscapes that she loved about her home. Her latest exhibition, Watercolours From Home, is a selection of those paintings. Now that almost two decades have passed and much has changed, these simple vignettes evoke a nostalgia and reminder of the fleetingness of our surroundings that often go unnoticed and unappreciated.

In this episode of Art Stories, Governor General award-winning author Ross King discusses Lawren Harris' 1930 sketch, Iceberg, Disco Bay, Greenland (1930). Ross King is the author of Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven. Special thanks to the Estate of Lawren Harris and Library and Archives Canada for allowing us to share footage filmed by Lawren Harris on his 1930 trip to the Arctic on the S.S. Beothic.

JEAN-PAUL JÉRÔME Theme and Variations March 25 - April 8, 2021 Alongside artists Rodolphe de Repentigny, Louis Belzile and Fernand Toupin, Jean-Paul Jérôme signed the Manifeste des Plasticiens in 1955, launching a crucial movement in Canadian abstraction. He kept a low profile, granting few interviews to shed light on what motivated his artistic choices and sharing only brief theoretical insights into his work. A solitary individual, married just for a short time and childles...s, given to introspection and an indefatigable worker, Jérôme devoted his life to art, initially in parallel with teaching, notably at Montreal’s École des beaux-arts, from 1958 to 1973, and then exclusively until his death in 2004, after a 60-year-long career. Jean-Paul Jérôme remains a laconic, mysterious figure. It is as if the man, in keeping with his true nature, had deliberately wanted to disappear behind the work. (Jean-Paul Jérôme, Untitled, 1995, acrylic on canvas, 56x72 in.)

JEAN-PAUL JÉRÔME Theme and Variations March 25 - April 8, 2021 Alongside artists Rodolphe de Repentigny, Louis Belzile and Fernand Toupin, Jean-Paul Jérôme signed the Manifeste des Plasticiens in 1955, launching a crucial movement in Canadian abstraction. He kept a low profile, granting few interviews to shed light on what motivated his artistic choices and sharing only brief theoretical insights into his work. A solitary individual, married just for a short time and childles...s, given to introspection and an indefatigable worker, Jérôme devoted his life to art, initially in parallel with teaching, notably at Montreal’s École des beaux-arts, from 1958 to 1973, and then exclusively until his death in 2004, after a 60-year-long career. Jean-Paul Jérôme remains a laconic, mysterious figure. It is as if the man, in keeping with his true nature, had deliberately wanted to disappear behind the work. (Jean-Paul Jérôme, Untitled, 1995, acrylic on canvas, 56x72 in.)

Art Stories brings you artists and art experts from across the country to share their thoughts on important works we have in the gallery. This episode features author and art historian Lisa Christensen discussing J.E.H. MacDonald's 1929 sketch Mt. Odaray, Lake O'Hara Area. Lisa Christensen is the author of four award-winning books describing trail access to the spots where Canadian artists have sat to paint. Her book on the Rocky Mountain art of J.E.H. MacDonald, The Lake O'Hara Art of J.E.H. MacDonald and Hiker's Guide was published in 2003. Her latest book Truth and Beauty in the Canadian Rockies: An Explorer's Guide to the Art of Walter J. Phillips was a finalist in the 2020 High Plains Book Awards. DM or contact us at [email protected] to order books by Lisa Christensen.

Alfred Joseph Casson (1898-1992) CGP CSPWC G7 OC POSA PRCA Indian Village, 1965 oil on canvas 30x36 in. (76.2x91.4 cm.) signed lower right... titled and signed on stretcher bar to verso Please inquire for price Provenance Sale of Sothebys Toronto, Important Canadian Art, Nov. 10, 1987, lot. 227; Private collection In 1919, at the age of 21, A. J Casson found himself seated next to Franklin Carmichael at a desk at the design firm of Rous & Mann. Carmichael took him to lunch at the Arts & Letters Club, where the future members of the Group of Seven would often meet. It was there, and through his friendship with Carmichael, that Casson would eventually become a member of the Group, replacing Frank Johnston when he left. Casson was thrilled to be a part of this established and by the time he joined quite famous group, and eagerly began joining them on their wilderness sketching trips. ...Jackson, Harris and Carmichael took me along for a two-week sketching trip. ...we camped in a spruce grove on the north shore of Lake Superior. 1 While Casson learned much from his fellow group members, he is known for his distinctive style, one that employs elements of geometry, conveys an almost cubist sense of space, and shows us small villages and rural scenes captured with a unique feeling for their structure, setting and charm. He was attuned to his scenes in the same way that Jackson was attuned to the St Lawrence and its rural villages. Casson’s work is identifiable at once his style, his touch, and his brushwork are unique delicate and bold at the same time, wherein houses and churches, forests and grasslands, people and animals are handled with a cohesive unity that speaks always of the weather. Wind, rain, or sunshine, whatever the scene holds is consistently echoed in each element of the work. As a modernist, his influence can be found in the generations of landscape painters that have since followed.

Alfred Joseph Casson (1898-1992) CGP CSPWC G7 OC POSA PRCA Indian Village, 1965 oil on canvas 30x36 in. (76.2x91.4 cm.) signed lower right... titled and signed on stretcher bar to verso Please inquire for price Provenance Sale of Sothebys Toronto, Important Canadian Art, Nov. 10, 1987, lot. 227; Private collection In 1919, at the age of 21, A. J Casson found himself seated next to Franklin Carmichael at a desk at the design firm of Rous & Mann. Carmichael took him to lunch at the Arts & Letters Club, where the future members of the Group of Seven would often meet. It was there, and through his friendship with Carmichael, that Casson would eventually become a member of the Group, replacing Frank Johnston when he left. Casson was thrilled to be a part of this established and by the time he joined quite famous group, and eagerly began joining them on their wilderness sketching trips. ...Jackson, Harris and Carmichael took me along for a two-week sketching trip. ...we camped in a spruce grove on the north shore of Lake Superior. 1 While Casson learned much from his fellow group members, he is known for his distinctive style, one that employs elements of geometry, conveys an almost cubist sense of space, and shows us small villages and rural scenes captured with a unique feeling for their structure, setting and charm. He was attuned to his scenes in the same way that Jackson was attuned to the St Lawrence and its rural villages. Casson’s work is identifiable at once his style, his touch, and his brushwork are unique delicate and bold at the same time, wherein houses and churches, forests and grasslands, people and animals are handled with a cohesive unity that speaks always of the weather. Wind, rain, or sunshine, whatever the scene holds is consistently echoed in each element of the work. As a modernist, his influence can be found in the generations of landscape painters that have since followed.

Sybil Andrews (1898-1992) Water Jump titled, editioned and signed upper left coloured linocut, ed. 14 of 60 12.5x8 in. (31.7x20.3 cm. )... Please inquire for price Provenance Private collection, Calgary In Water Jump, Sybil Andrews shows us her mastery of the use of negative space. The white horse, the main subject of the composition, is composed using an outline of black, with an interior shadow of pale cobalt blue, and a foreleg accented by spectrum red. It is a masterful print, the water is finely handled, and the passage wherein the lead horse’s tail, fits perfectly under the next horse’s chin is Andrews at her best. Andrews explored several horse-related sporting subjects in her prints: In Full Cry, Racing, and Steeplechasing, show us a hunt and two types of racing. Michaelmas, Mangolds, Tillers of the Soil, Days’ End, and The Timber Jim, explore the horse at work.

Alfred Joseph Casson (1898-1992) CGP CSPWC G7 OC POSA PRCA Magnetawan Village, 1930 signed lower right titled and dated to verso oil on board... 9.5x11.25 in. (24.8x28.6 cm.) Sold Provenance Acquired diretly from the artist in the 1930s; By descent to private collection, Ontario; Sale of Heffel Fine Art, November 19, 2009, lot 123; Private collection By the 1930s Casson had seen, and was influenced by, the work of American painter Edward Hopper. While Casson is known to have admired his work, and at times, as we see here, to echo Hopper’s stillness and concentrated gaze, Casson is devoid of Hopper’s distinct and often quite critical social commentary. His gaze is instead benign, as if through rose coloured glasses, where the intent is to see the beauty and charm of this quaint town. Magnetawan Village has a unified, soft palette of greys and pale pinky browns, buttery greens and a touch or brighter orange. It is a fine example of Casson’s skill with subdued colour, wherein these soft tones are heightened by the blue accents on the windows of the nearest building, and set off against the billowing clouds.

Lionel LeMoine Fitzgerald (1890-1956) CGO G7 MSA Nasturtiums, 1929 oil on canvas 6.75x10.25 in. (17x26 cm) Sold... inscribed to verso: by L. Lemoine FitzGerald, Winnipeg (c.1929), given to his daughter Mrs. Hugh W. Morrison (née Patricia LeMoine Fitzgerald) (Toronto) Provenance Collection of Patricia LeMoine Fitzgerald, Toronto; Private collection, Calgary Exhibited A Passion for Art: Works from Private Collections, The Glenbow Museum, Calgary, December 3, 1994 January 29, 1995 Nasturtiums is at a glance instantly recognizable as a work by Fitzgerald. His soft colour, the ‘seen as if from a standing position’ composition, the mosaic of gentle daubs of paint, and the simple, almost spiritually reverent arrangement of the nasturtiums in the humble jar of water are classic Fitzgerald. The choice of nasturtiums a reliable prairie summer flower seems apt, and the verso inscription, gifting the work to his daughter Patricia, adds poignancy.

Frederick Horsman Varley (1881-1969) ARCA G7 OSA Snow People titled and signed with artist’s address to verso oil on board 12x15 in. (21.6x26.6 cm)... Please inquire for price Varley Inventory no. 13, label to verso Provenance Roberts Gallery, Toronto; McCready Galleries Inc., Toronto; Private collection Frederick Varley’s whimsical and imaginative work Snow People depicts a group of what we assume are children, playing in a forest heavily encrusted with snow. It is possible that these figures include his son John, and that this work was painted in British Columbia, where he moved in 1924 and where John accompanied his father on a number of sketching trips. Other works known to be of John approximate the age and stature of the figure with his back to us, hiding behind a snow-covered tree. This is speculation though, not proven by any fact. The only facts we do have are that this is a joyous work, with rich swirls of delicious colour, and a sense of pure delight in this winter wonderland of snow. Almost abstract, the trees take the form of crouching angels, and the figures hiding among them are caught in a magical, marvelous, dream-like, white world. Varley was indeed a virtuoso colourist, his works often seem to contain an inner glow, sometimes golden as we see in his portrait of his son John, sometimes green as with his portrait of Vera from 1930, or red, as with his Gypsy Head from 1919. (All these works, National Gallery of Canada). Here, in this exuberant scene, the inner glow is white, emanating from a surreal forest of swirling colour and winter form.

Paul-Émile Borduas (1905-1960) RCA Patte de Velours, 1955 signed and dated ‘55 lower right oil on canvas 36x30 in. (91.4x76.2 cm.)... Please inquire for price Provenance Acquired directly from the artist’s studio by G. Blair Laing, May 15, 1958, Paris; Private collection, Toronto; Sale of Heffel Fine Art, Fine Canadian Art, Nov. 24, 2005; Private collection Literature Francois Marc-Gagnon, Paul-Émile Borduas, 1978, listed p. 445 Patte de Velours, which translates to Velvet Paws, is a lovely title for a beautiful work. Borduas’s skill with white, and his liberal use of it, gives his works a refined, luxurious quality. A pure, reactive, instinctive abstraction, Patte de Velours is about movement, colour and liberation, as seems to embody a passage from the Refus Global, wherein the painting is freed from useless chains, ...realize[s] a plenitude of individual gifts, ...unpredictability, spontaneity and resplendent anarchy. Borduas had moved to Paris by the year this work was painted, a time when he was very interest in the ideas of light and space. His works from this time are highly sought, their sense of airy spaciousness seems to incline viewers to lean in, take a deep breath and gaze.

James Edward Hervey (J.E.H.) MacDonald (1873-1932) G7 OSA RCA Little Lake Near Lake Oesa, Oesa Trail, Lake O’Hara Camp, c. 1926 signed and titled on artist’s label to verso oil on panel 8.5x10.5 in. (21.6x26.6 cm)... Sold Provenance Collection of E.R. Hunter, author of J.E.H. MacDonald: A Biography and Catalogue of His Work (1940); Private collection, Calgary Exhibited The Group of Seven in Western Canada, The Glenbow Museum, June - November 2000, no. 73; Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, November 2002 - February 2003; Winnipeg Art Gallery, February 22 - May 18, 2003; Art Gallery of Great Victoria, June - September 2003; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, October 2003 - January 2004 J.E.H. MacDonald’s artistic allegiance to the scenery of Lake O’Hara is evident in the variety of locations he accessed, the different vistas he painted, and the full sampling of Canadian Rockies weather he captured them in. This brilliant scene is a sunlit gem of a work, depicting a spot painted not only by MacDonald, but by his fellow founding Group of Seven members, Arthur Lismer and Lawren Harris. Today, we call the small tarn he has depicted Lefroy Lake. Hikers familiar with the Lake O’Hara trail system will know this appealing spot well, it is one of the many charming small lakes that dot the trailside while you are ascending to, or descending from, Lake Oesa. It is an idyllic spot, beckoning hikers to stop for tea, or to rock hop to the little lake to just to sit, and spend some time watching the shadows play across the glaciers on the mountains above.