Lot 161: James Wilson Morrice 1865 - 1924 Canadian oil on panel Café, Tangiers at Night

James Wilson Morrice 1865 - 1924 Canadian oil on panel Café, Tangiers at Night
4 7/8 x 5 7/8 inches 12.4 x 14.9 centimeters
Provenance:W. Scott & Sons, Montreal
Kastel Gallery Inc., Montreal
A Prominent Montreal Collector
Sold sale of Canadian Art, An Outstanding Collection, The Property of a Prominent Montreal Collector, Fraser Bros., Montreal, Thursday, October 23, 1986, lot #68
Galerie Walter Klinkhoff Inc., Montreal
A Prominent Montreal Collection In 1890, James Wilson Morrice moved from Montreal to Paris for "the love of paint"; he loved to travel, but soon got addicted to his daily drink. Not surprisingly, many of his sketches are painted from café tables, but never, it seems, "under the influence" - Morrice painted first and drank later. That is certainly the case for this carefully composed, but rapidly painted, panel. The Arab garb links it to Morrice's Tangiers sojourns of 1912 - 1913; Henri Matisse stayed at the same hotel, and his bright colours are echoed in Morrice's sketches of the nearby market. But Morrice's drinking was by then so heavy (according to painter Charles Camoin, who was also there), that it is hard to explain a 'nocturne' painting.
The riddle is solved by a circa 1904 drawing of three people at a café in Marseille or Avignon (sketchbook #18, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts); the figures and the tree are exactly the same, but the right background element (here a calèche) is an advertising column; the style of the present sketch, still recalling Whistler, corresponds to this period. Why Morrice, with a few pencil marks and brush-strokes, transformed it into a North African scene, and when, is just another mystery that adds to his legend.
We thank Lucie Dorais for her assistance in researching this lot and for contributing the above essay. Dorais is currently compiling a catalogue raisonné on the work of James Wilson Morrice.