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Provenance

Loch Gallery, Winnipeg

Private collection, Winnipeg

By descent, Private collection, Ontario

W.J. Phillips’s first sketching trip to the Rocky Mountains in 1926 marked a defining point in his career. The experience established a lasting fascination with the mountain landscape, which would become one of the central subjects of his work. Over the following fifteen years, he returned to the Rockies whenever possible. In 1940, Phillips was invited to teach at the Banff Summer School, followed in 1941 by an appointment at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary. With all but their youngest child settled, Walter and Gladys Phillips relocated to Calgary in the autumn of 1941. Now fifty-five, Phillips found himself living within easy reach of the mountains that had increasingly captured his artistic imagination. Their proximity allowed Phillips to devote himself more fully to the Rocky Mountain landscape, which would remain a focus of his art.