Provenance

The Artist, until at least 1893, Mrs. J. Home Cameron, Toronto, by May 1959, McMichael Canadian Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, McCready Gallery, Toronto, Private Collection, circa 1972, Cowley Abbott, auction, Toronto, 8 June 2023, lot 141, Private Collection, Ontario

Exhibited

Possibly “Eighth Annual Exhibition of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts”, Art Association of Montreal, from 20 April 1887, no. 117 Dudley Gallery Art Society, London, England, January‒February 1888, no. 1 “Fine Art Exhibition”, Bewick Club, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, 1888, no. 1 “A Selection of Twenty-seven Water Colour Drawings, Illustrating Scenery in ‘The Rocky Mountains’ and ‘Pacific Coast’ British Columbia. By L.R. O’Brien, Esq. President of the Royal Canadian Academy”, Thomas McLean’s Gallery, London, from 22 June 1889, no. 1 “Lucius R. O’Brien”, W. Scott & Sons, Montreal, from 12 March 1892, no. 2 as “A Pass on the Canadian Highway” at $350 “The Palette Club”, Lucius O’Brien’s Studio, Toronto, 10‒11 February 1893, no. 22 as “The Kicking Horse Pass” at $350 “Lucius R. O’Brien”, Matthews Bros, Toronto, from 12 December 1893, no. 1 as “A Pass on the Canadian Highway” $350 “Our Own Country Canada”, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; travelling to Winnipeg Art Gallery; Vancouver Art Gallery; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 24 November 1978‒19 August 1979, no. 125 “Historische Maleriei Kanadas, in OKANADA”, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, travelling to Instituts für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart, 5 December 1982‒20 March 1983, no. 23 “Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection”, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; travelling to Musée du Québec, Quebec City; Vancouver Art Gallery; Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, 14 May 1988‒7 May 1989, no. 20 “Lucius R. O’Brien: Visions of Victorian Canada”, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, travelling to the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Vancouver Art Gallery; Musée du Québec, 28 September 1990‒14 July 1991, no. 57 “Plain Truth”, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, travelling to the Glenbow, Calgary; MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, 13 March‒21 November 1998, no. 249 “Vistas: Artists on the C.P.R.”, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, 20 June‒20 September 2009 “Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven”, Vancouver Art Gallery, travelling to the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; Art Gallery of Hamilton, 30 October 2015‒25 September 2016 “Highlights from ‘Embracing Canada’”, Galerie Eric Klinkhoff, Montreal, 22 October‒5 November 2016, no. 9.

Literature

‘The Art Exhibition. Some Notices of the Pictures Displayed’, “The Herald” (Montreal), 21 April 1887, as “The New Route to the East – a Pass on the Canadian Railway” ‘Art and Artists’, “Toronto Saturday Night”, VI:13 (18 February 1893), page 15, as “The Kicking Horse Pass” ‘Saturday Art Supplement’, “Daily Mail” (Toronto), 13 May 1893, reproduced as “Through the Rocky Mountains. A pass of the Canadian Pacific Railway” Dennis Reid, “‘Our Own Country Canada’: Being an Account of the National Aspirations of the Principal Landscape Artists in Montreal and Toronto 1860-1890”, National Gallery of Canada Journal 31 (24 November 1978), reproduced page 8 John Bentley Mays, ‘Black and white in color’, “Maclean’s” (15 January 1979), reproduced page 47 Dennis Reid, “‘Our Own Country Canada’: Being an Account of the National Aspirations of the Principal Landscape Artists in Montreal and Toronto 1860-1890”, Ottawa, 1979, pages 397-400, 414-415, reproduced page 415, as painted from O’Brien’s 1887 trip to the Rockies Dennis Reid, ‘Lucius O’Brien’, in “OKANADA, Akademie der Künste”, Berlin, 1982, reproduced page 52; original texts for German-language catalogue, page 51 Allan Pringle, “Artists of the Canadian Pacific Railway”, (M.A. thesis, Concordia University, Montreal, 1983), pages 55-60, 85, 121, 144, as “Bridge‒Kicking Horse Pass‒Second Crossing”, reproduced illustration 2 Sid Marty, “A Grand and Fabulous Notion: The First Century of Canada’s National Parks”, Toronto, 1984, reproduced page 50 Allan Pringle, “William Cornelius Van Horne: Art Director, Canadian Pacific Railway,” The Journal of Canadian Art History, 8 (1984), pages 63-66, 77 note 65, as “Bridge‒Kicking Horse Pass‒Second Crossing” Craig Brown, editor, “The Illustrated History of Canada”, Toronto, 1987 (and 1990), reproduced page 360 Dennis Reid, “Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection”, Toronto, 1988, reproduced pages 28‒29 Dennis R. Reid, “Lucius R. O’Brien: Visions of Victorian Canada”, Toronto, 1990, pages 79‒80, 92 notes 51, 53, reproduced page 163 Dennis Reid, ‘O’Brien, Lucius Richard’, in “Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. XII”, Toronto, 1990, page 795 Lynda Jessup, “Canadian Artists, Railways, The State and ‘The Business of Becoming a Nation’” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1992), pages 190, 205‒206, 214-215, reproduced figure 59 Roger Boulet, “Vistas: Artists on the Canadian Pacific Railway”, Calgary, 2009, pages 61‒65, [70?], reproduced page 108 Nancy Townshend, “Art Inspired by the Canadian Rockies, Purcell Mountains and Selkirk Mountains 1809-2012”, Calgary, 2012, page 10, reproduced insert 5 “Infrastructure Canada: Daniel Young and Christian Giroux”, Oakville, 2012, page 251, reproduced page 249.