Humber Valley
Creator
J.E.H. MacDonald
(Canadian, 1873 - 1932)
Date1912
Mediumoil on paperboard
DimensionsPaperboard support: 15.3 × 23.4 cm (5 1/2 × 9 1/16 in.)
Credit LineGift of Sydney G. Frankfort, 2015
Object number2016/29
Copyright
© Art Gallery of Ontario
Place CreatedHumber Valley, Ontario, Canada
ProvenanceMacDonald’s Humber Valley was done eight years before the formation of the Group of Seven, one year after he first met Harris and one year before he would go on a sketching trip with future Group members Harris and Arthur Lismer (1885-1969). His observation of the autumnal foliage and dormant grasses in the Humber River Valley belie their location in Toronto’s western suburbs. The sketch’s chromatic unity, the artist’s active and assured painting, often wet-into-wet, creates subtle effects of rustling foliage and waving grasses indicative of the southern Ontario landscape. Where the later Harris sketch shows pictorial distillation, MacDonald’s treatment of the landscape at the moment is concerned with capturing an instant with warm colours, and contrasting them with the sky’s slightly cool blue
LocationNot currently on display
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