Lot 62: SIR FREDERICK GRANT BANTING 1891 - 1941

GASPÉ, QUEBEC
signed l.r.: BANTING; signed, inscribed and dated by the artist on the reverse: To Ed. Hall, Sincerely, Banting, March 1931; titled and dated on a label: Gaspe, Quebec, c. 1930

21.6 by 26.7 cm. 8½ by 10½ in.

oil on panel

Unlike his mentor, A. Y. Jackson, Banting had no formal artistic training. Their friendship continued for some sixteen years and involved sketching trips to various regions in Quebec and the Canadian Arctic. Banting was fascinated with the texture of melting snow and the effects of sunlight. This fine sketch, from an early March trip to Charlevoix County in 1931, is thickly painted with slabs of snow on the ice - counterbalanced by the wind clouds above. Borrowing a technique from the Group of Seven, Banting uses the colour of the bare panel to add to his depiction of the boats.