Lot 107: Kathleen Frances Daly Pepper 1898 - 1994 Canadian oil on canvas Catskill Mountains

Kathleen Frances Daly Pepper 1898 - 1994 Canadian oil on canvas Catskill Mountains
37 1/4 x 40 inches 94.6 x 101.6 centimeters signed and on verso titled on various exhibition labels
Provenance:An Important Private Estate, Toronto Exhibited:Ontario Society of Artists, Toronto, Annual Exhibition, 1929
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Annual Exhibition of Canadian Art
Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, 1930 The vibrant work of Kathleen Frances Daly Pepper depicts the Canadian landscape in all of its multi-hued diversity. This work, Catskill Mountains, had a pedigreed exhibition history prior to entering the important
Private Collection from which it comes to auction for the first time. It is a stunning work that shows off Pepper's skill with colour and pattern. Hot greens and reds in sunlight complement bright orange and blue, yet the shadows are deep and cool, balancing the palette and creating harmony in the work. Our vantage point as viewers is especially interesting: we are up above the buildings the artist has chosen to depict, looking down on their multi-hued rooftops from a position in a shadowed spot, thus the scene is in sunlight while we are in shade, an artistic treatment which serves to enlighten the vista in a very literal way. There is a sense of an even brighter light on the trees in the furrow between the mid-ground hills as they roll up and away from the buildings, further emphasizing this feeling of brilliant light. The face of the more distant hill is depicted in golden yellows and browns, which cool to purples, blues and deeper browns as the hills recede into shadows on their sides and in the rolling distance. The overall effect is one of tantalizing, sparkling light.
Pepper was a master at this effect, and uses it in both her landscapes and her portraits to brilliant effect. Her sense of colour rivaled that of Frederick Varley, giving her works an energized, emotional charge. The sky, softer and more subdued, reminds us of the illustrative work of J.E.H. MacDonald and is a historical nod to the influence of the Group of Seven on Pepper, which was strong. She exhibited with them in 1931, having studied at the Ontario College of Art under MacDonald, as well as another of the Group's founding members, Arthur Lismer, in addition to J.W. Beatty, George Reid and Fred Haines.
Pepper was well traveled, biking through Europe in 1924 with fellow painters Yvonne McKague and Roselyn (Rody) Kenny. Daly married painter George Pepper in 1929. He shared her love of travel, which continued to be a large part of her life as they journeyed together to paint from Banff to Nova Scotia, as well as to the far north to Ellesmere Island, Povungnituk in Canada's eastern Arctic, northern Labrador and south to the Catskill Mountains in New York State. Together they built a cabin studio in Charlevoix County in the Laurentians in 1933. They also became long-term tenants in the Studio Building in Toronto beginning in 1934.
Pepper was an accomplished portraitist, painting sympathetic images of the Stoney First Nation of Alberta and the Montagnais of Charlevoix. Her sketches of coal miners done at Canmore, Alberta, record a unique moment in Canadian history. She had a fine eye for design and pattern, honed at the Parsons School of Design in New York, and she worked capably in many media including lithographic crayon, pen and ink, and the woodcut. Her creative talents also included writing; she was the author of several articles on Canadian art as well as a book on the life and work of James Wilson Morrice, published in 1966.
During her lifetime her work was selected for numerous prestigious exhibitions such as the British Empire Exhibition of 1936 and the Tate Gallery's 1938 A Century of Canadian Art. Catskill Mountains showed in the Ontario Society of Artists' Annual Exhibition in 1929, the National Gallery of Canada's Annual Exhibition of Canadian Art and the Canadian National Exhibition in 1930.