Only a bit shy of 100 years since this composition of the “Barns at Baie St Paul” was completed, the painting has maintained a freshness and vitality evidenced by the best of Fred Hutchison’s paintings of the Charlevoix region.

Baie St. Paul has been the mecca for artists working in the region for more than 120 years. Its best-known part-time resident is Clarence A. Gagnon, who spent his time between Baie St Paul and an apartment in Paris, a most interesting contrast in environments. Although the towns and villages in the region have changed enormously over the century since Fred Hutchison painted alongside his close friend Clarence Gagnon, many of the views, be they toward the river or toward the rolling hills, are pristine, and as visually seductive as ever. (And the air is free of pollen!)

Hutchison was teaching at the College of the City of New York from 1905 for more than three decades. According to research for her MA Thesis on F.W. Hutchison at Montreal’s Concordia University in 1982, Stephanie Thomas concluded that for more than 25 years Hutchison rented the same cottage in Baie St. Paul belonging to Joseph Simard for part of the summer and early fall while on summer holidays from his teaching duties. It is here that Hutchison painted his most important contribution to Canadian art. Hutchison’s grand nephew, Peter J. Hutchison researched the artist and added that “A dear friend of the Clarence Gagnon's was Florence Gutteridge who had a cottage in Cacouna, Quebec on the south shore. It was in 1922, when ‘Tante Flo’ came to Baie St. Paul for her annual visit with the Gagnons, that she first met Frederick Hutchison. Florence would become Hutchison’s wife …’

It is of interest to refer to a primary source, the legendary Montreal-based art dealer, William Watson, who sold Hutchison paintings and considered the artist a friend. He gives us both an appreciation of the work and a sense of the man. Watson closed his gallery in 1958 and passed away 15 years later. Posthumously his “Recollections of a Montreal Art Dealer” was published.

"One artist who always impressed me with his interpretations of the beauty of the Lower St Lawrence region was Fred Hutchison. He was well known in the art world of both Canada and the United States, but unfortunately his works are not well represented in Quebec, the province in which he was born and which he particularly loved. Although lured by circumstances to live for years in New York, where he taught art during the winter, he never failed to make the annual pilgrimage to his house at Baie St Paul. From there he painted vital landscapes of that region, including the hinterlands of Charlevoix county, an area that no member of the Group of Seven had yet discovered. Like Cullen, he was a sincere individualist, but while Cullen invariably painted the Laurentians in winter, Hutchison much preferred their summer and autumn aspects. Thus we have from these two artists the beauty of changing seasons. Hutchison’s character as a man was well reflected in his painting. His was a calm, quiet personality, yet tremendously and completely outgoing. He was fond of golf in summer and outdoor curling in winter, and was adept as well at billiards. Hutchison was one of the first of our outdoor painters: I once had to take the sand out from behind a large canvas stretcher. Even his largest pictures have the freshness of sketches. Fortunately some directors recognized his significance and he is fairly well represented in Canadian galleries, and the Americans also have good examples of his work."

This is a painting of great quality, executed in a distinctive hand and with integrity by a most talented artist whose work compares favourably with his contemporaries, many of whom are better known than he is. We emphatically recommend the purchase of this fine Fred Hutchison to collectors of the best of Canadian painting of this generation and of the Charlevoix region.