Signed and dated

Provenance

Franklin Carmichael estate, by descent

Private collection, Ontario

In October 1923, Carmichael undertook a sketching trip, possibly his second, to the Severn River district just north of Orillia. He considered the results successful enough to be exhibited immediately in the Ontario Society of Artists Small Pictures Exhibition and again the following summer. In the sketches, both format and handling are reduced in complexity. A variety of factors may have contributed to the evolution of Carmichael’s style. The landscape of the Severn River area perhaps suggested a new approach. Certainly, in Carmichael’s travels throughout these years, the artist was seeking a landscape with which he felt a complete empathy, to a search that was later culminated in his discovery of the La Cloche region. The 1923 sketches are a manifestation of Carmichael’s continuing great adventure of exploration.