Lot 105: Helen Galloway McNicoll 1879 - 1915 Canadian oil

Helen Galloway McNicoll 1879 - 1915 Canadian oil on panel The Avenue 14 x 11 inches 35.6 x 27.9 centimeters on verso inscribed on a label ""I received this painting from my father Gordon McNicoll, who was Helen McNicoll's nephew - Stacey McNicoll"" Literature:Natalie Luckyj, Helen McNicoll: A Canadian Impressionist, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1999, catalogue #35, the related circa 1912 large format canvas of the same subject entitled The Avenue reproduced page 36 Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, November 25, 2004, the related circa 1912 large format canvas of the same subject entitled The Avenue reproduced page 16, lot 16 Provenance:Estate of the Artist Gordon McNicoll, nephew of the Artist, USA By descent to the present Private Collection, USA In 1905, Helen McNicoll attended Julius Olsson's School of Landscape and Sea Painting in St. Ives, a seaside town in Cornwall, England. Here she met Algernon Talmage, the principal of the school, who emphasized the importance of painting en plein air. During the summer, Talmage taught figure classes in a private orchard; these classes were integral to the development of McNicoll's mature painting style. With its carefully constructed pattern of light and shadow down the tree-lined avenue, this work adheres to Talmage's adage, as quoted by Natalie Luckyj, that "there is sunshine in the shadows." Almost certainly, this superb painting with its luminous play of light and fluid brush-strokes was painted en plein air. This atmospheric work is the study for McNicoll's canvas The Avenue, which sold at Heffel on November 25, 2004.