Provenance

Estate of J.E.H. MacDonald

By descent to Thoreau MacDonald

Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal

Peter Ohler Fine Arts Ltd., Vancouver

Private collection, Toronto

J.E.H. MacDonald visited Agawa Canyon in Algoma for the first time during the fall of 1918, together with Lawren Harris,Franz Johnston, and Dr. James MacCallum. The region was not a settled or a resort area; rather, they had to camp in the remote and rugged wilderness. Harris, rented a boxcar from Algoma Central Railway and turned it into a bunker for the Group of Seven painters to stay. The men were able to negotiate an arrangement whereby they could hitch onto trains travelling through the Algoma region and when they found an opportune location to paint, they would be dropped off to spend as many days as they wished exploring and painting the wilderness. The outing was so successful that they all set out again in September 1919 and twice in 1920 with Jackson and Lismer; each trip they ventured farther north and west.

Not unlike other members of the Group, trips to the Algoma region inspired some of MacDonald’s best work of this rugged landscape, and like Thomson, he was an advocate for the small oil sketch produced en plein air.