Lot 78: ARTHUR HEMING 1870 - 1940

ARTHUR HEMING 1870 - 1940 CANADIAN PIONEERS signed and dated lower left Heming '31 ; signed and titled on the artist's label on the reverse oil on canvas 61.0 by 81.3 cm. 24 by 32 in.

Arthur Heming, The Drama of the Forests, Romance and Adventure, Toronto, 1921, opposite p. 52, for an illustration in colour of a similar work in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum

Private Collection, London, England

By descent to a Private Collector, Toronto

The York Boat, which Heming has painted here, was used to transport supplies to the Hudson Bay Company's posts along the great waterways of Canada's river systems. A forty-foot craft, it was manned by eight crew and carried an astonishing three and a half tons of cargo.

Heming romanticized aspects of life in the north in his paintings and in his illustrations for books and magazines. He was internationally acclaimed as both a writer and as an artist, and his focus on northern adventures, Aboriginal heroes, and the lives of trappers and lumbermen gave him a large following.