Artworks

In a previous exhibition and sale we offered an equally exceptional painting by Thomas Garside at Métis-sur-Mer, a popular area in the Gaspé populated in the summer months by affluent people from Montreal and elsewhere. In this fine canvas Garside is on the other side of the St Lawrence River, the north shore, and in winter. Murray Bay, like Metis has a legacy of affluent summer “residents” from Montreal and farther afield dating, for all intents and purposes, to the beginning of the 20th Century. The American President, William Howard Taft had a home in Murray Bay. (Descendants of the President had 4 homes in the area through the 1960s). Murray Bay was a stop for the prestigious White Ships “in the day” and the Manoir Richelieu Hotel was the anchor for short term visitors.

Winter was and is harsh in the area. The region was relatively isolated in the winter and vacationers were rare. The Manoir Richelieu in fact was open only in the summer months until the 1970s.

Clarence Gagnon and from around 1942 Rene Richard lived in Baie St Paul, the former however spending a considerable amount of time in Paris as well. Hardy artists like A.Y. Jackson and Albert Robinson painted the majesty of the Charlevoix region in the winter and early spring, when the receding snow line made travel easier.

Thomas Garside was a highly proficient artist active in Montreal and the region from the late 1930s. He exhibited at the Art Association of Montreal annual exhibitions regularly for 15 years beginning in 1934, as well as at Montreal’s Stevens Art Gallery and Continental Galleries. Equally capable in the medium of oils as he was with pastels, the most recognizable images of his oeuvre are his winter and autumn scenes of the Laurentians and Eastern Townships.