Lot 106: William Percival (W.P.) Weston 1879 - 1967

William Percival (W.P.) Weston 1879 - 1967 Canadian oil on canvas Old Fir, Victoria, BC 22 x 25 1/4 inches 55.9 x 64.1 centimeters signed and on verso signed and titled Literature:British Columbia Society of Artists, 47th Annual Exhibition, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1958, listed Letia Richardson, Silence and Solitude, The Art of W.P. Weston, Richmond Art Gallery, 1993, page 11, a similar 1936 canvas entitled Battle Scarred, in the collection of the University of Victoria, reproduced page 14 Provenance:Private Collection, Vancouver Exhibited:Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia Society of Artists, 47th Annual Exhibition, March 5 - 24, 1958, catalogue #107 W.P. Weston is one of the unique and independent artists, including Emily Carr and E.J. Hughes, who have shaped our perception of British Columbia's wilderness. Weston emigrated from England and settled in Vancouver in 1909, painting and teaching art. Exploring his surroundings, Weston soon realized he would have to put aside his early training at the Putney School of Art to create his own visual language of form appropriate to the epic grandeur of mountains, forest and coast that he saw. Trees were an important subject for Weston; whether venerable with age or radiant in full maturity, Weston portrayed them as powerful and individual. As he stated, "I like the trees that have had a struggle.....They're like people who have had to fight to live; they've developed character." In this vigorous painting, the fir, its trunk gnarled by time, stands stalwartly in the inner forest; at its roots lie branches dropped during storms, and ringed around it are the slender trunks of younger trees. It is a triumphant survivor, part of the perpetual evolution of life in the forest.