On Paper: A glimpse of rarely-seen works from McMichael's permanent collection

Emily Carr diary/sketchbook, watercolours by AJ Casson and David Milne, Arthur Lismer drawings all part of display

Yorkregion.com
March 5, 2016
By Adam Martin-Robbins

The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is marking its 50th anniversary this year and as part of the celebration, it’s breaking out the fine china, so to speak.

The Kleinburg gallery’s newest exhibition On Paper, which opened Feb. 6 and runs until May 1, will give visitors a glimpse at a selection of rarely seen works on paper from the McMichael’s permanent collection.

“What’s special or of particular interest with respect to this exhibition ... is that these works, because they’re works on paper, are only suitable for temporary exposure,” said Chris Finn, assistant curator at the McMichael. “We need to be able to exhibit them only for short periods of time and then they have to go into dark storage for an extended period of time just to balance out how much light exposure they actually get.”

Among the pieces on display is Emily Carr’s 56-page diary and sketchbook produced in 1903 during a visit to Europe and England, when she wound up hospitalized for 18 months to treat a persistent illness

An iPad has been installed alongside it allowing visitors to scroll through its entire contents.

The exhibition also boasts stunning watercolours by Group of Seven member A.J. Casson.

“You can see different strategies that Casson was working with in terms of certain pre-planning,” Finn said. “You can see some of the graphite lines that were laid out in terms of establishing the composition, but he certainly did have the mastery and control of the medium.”

There’s also a series of unique watercolours by David Milne, including Morning Paper, which has never been publicly exhibited and was recently promised as a gift to the McMichael gallery.

“He worked in a wide variety of media - he was doing oil painting as well as drypoint etchings - but this series of watercolours is really quite an interesting handling of the media,” Finn said. “A very atmospheric and very controlled application of the paint and colour.”

Group of Seven fans may also enjoy the series of seldom displayed, playful drawings by Arthur Lismer of Tom Thomson and members of the iconic group of Canadian landscape painters.

“Lismer, according to comments Lawren Harris made, was always carrying pencils and papers and was this inveterate sort of draftsman who continued to produce works wherever,” Finn said. “We have do have works in the collection where he’s taken a theatre program from a performance at The Arts and Letters Club and started sketching out a caricature of Lawren Harris. So he would draw on anything.”

On Paper also features Clarence Gagnon’s original fifty-four artworks for Maria Chapdelaine, a novel written in 1913 by the French writer Louis Hemon based on his experiences in the Lac Saint-Jean district of Quebec.

Editions Mornay, a book publisher in Paris, commissioned Gagnon to create the first colour illustrations for a new edition of the novel.

“He originally resisted agreeing to this commission because of the amount of time required for producing these kinds of limited edition books because he was active as a painter and as printmaker,” Finn explained. “It took a lot of encouragement and constant pressure from the publisher to get Clarence Gagnon to actually commit to doing this series.”

It wound up taking Gagnon five years of intense work to complete the illustrations.

“He would spend months and months and months developing studies before he reached a final work that would serve as the illustration in the book,” Finn said.

The Maria Chapdelaine display also includes copies of the original limited-edition Editions Mornay novel as well as the 1931 French periodical L’Illustration, which promoted the book.

One of the first Maria Chapdelaine films, produced in France in 1934 and directed by Julien Duvivier, and a hand-drawn lithographic poster promoting the film, are part of the exhibition too.

To find out more, visit http://www.mcmichael.com.