Anne Savage: The Skeena River Sketches by Cowley Abbott Fine Art

Anne Savage The Skeena River Sketches

A Collection of Paintings Available for Private Sale

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Front Cover Anne Savage, Totem of the Skeena River, 1927

Page 2 Anne Savage, Landscape with Skeena Mountains, 1927 Back Cover Anne Savage, Pink Sky, Skeena River, 1927

ANNE SAVAGE: THE SKEENA RIVER SKETCHES | Cowley Abbott & Ohler’s Fine Art

Anne Savage: The Skeena River Sketches Anne Savage is known for her lyrical, rhythmic landscapes. She was one of several important women artists who were active in Montreal after the First World War. She shared with the Group of Seven a romantic

vision of the Canadian landscape as a symbol of nationalism, as well as a modernist concern for the formal elements of painting. In 1920, she helped form Montreal’s Beaver Hall Group.

In 1927, Savage travelled with the sculptor Florence Wyle and ethnographer Marius Barbeau to the Skeena River district of British Columbia. Organized by the National Gallery of Canada, the purpose of the trip was to record the totem poles of the area. It was a difficult trip to make in those days: from the train they

rode in on then horseback to the primitive lodge at Hazelton, close to the dangerous, cold Skeena River. The

landscape made a great impression on Savage and her excitement and intensity show up in the set of sketches she brought back from the trip. They are a collection of small pine boards that show the dusky totems

standing against the heavy green-black of the B.C. bush, with turquoise peaks behind. The river, mountains,

and pines, although done on a small scale, are monumental in their effect. Anne Savage valued the paintings and kept them together as a complete collection all her life, something she rarely did. The works Savage

produced from this trip were displayed, along with the work of other “moderns” such as Emily Carr, as part

of the 1927 exhibition Canadian West Coast Art, Native and Modern at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

ANNE SAVAGE: THE SKEENA RIVER SKETCHES | Cowley Abbott & Ohler’s Fine Art

ANNE SAVAGE Forest Interior, Skeena River, 1927 oil on board inscribed with the artist’s initials “ADS” on the reverse 9 x 12 ins PROVENANCE

Estate of the Artist Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal Mr. Ken Thomson, Toronto Masters Gallery, Calgary Private collection, Calgary

ANNE SAVAGE: THE SKEENA RIVER SKETCHES | Cowley Abbott & Ohler’s Fine Art

ANNE SAVAGE Totem of the Skeena River, 1927 oil on board inscribed with the artist’s initials “ADS” on the reverse 9 x 12 ins PROVENANCE

Estate of the Artist Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal Mr. Ken Thomson, Toronto Masters Gallery, Calgary Private collection, Calgary

ANNE SAVAGE: THE SKEENA RIVER SKETCHES | Cowley Abbott & Ohler’s Fine Art

ANNE SAVAGE Landscape with Skeena Mountains, 1927 oil on board inscribed with the artist’s initials “ADS” on the reverse 9 x 12 ins PROVENANCE

Estate of the Artist Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal Mr. Ken Thomson, Toronto Masters Gallery, Calgary Private collection, Calgary EXHIBITED

Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, 20 September - 16 January 2022; travelling to Glenbow Museum, Calgary, 9 April - 8 May 2022; Vancouver Art Gallery, 11 June 2022 – 8 January 2023; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 3 March - 20 August 2023 LITERATURE

Uninvited, Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, reproduced page 55

ANNE SAVAGE: THE SKEENA RIVER SKETCHES | Cowley Abbott & Ohler’s Fine Art

ANNE SAVAGE Mother and Child, Skeena River, 1927 oil on board inscribed with the artist’s initials “ADS” on the reverse 9 x 12 ins PROVENANCE

Estate of the Artist Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal Mr. Ken Thomson, Toronto Masters Gallery, Calgary Private collection, Calgary

ANNE SAVAGE: THE SKEENA RIVER SKETCHES | Cowley Abbott & Ohler’s Fine Art

ANNE SAVAGE Skeena River Landscape with Tree, 1927 oil on board (double sided) with a completed sketch “Spring Lake Wonish, Quebec”, circa 1940 on the reverse; inscribed with the artist’s initials “ADS” on the reverse 9 x 12 ins PROVENANCE

Estate of the Artist Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal Mr. Ken Thomson, Toronto Masters Gallery, Calgary Private collection, Calgary

ANNE SAVAGE: THE SKEENA RIVER SKETCHES | Cowley Abbott & Ohler’s Fine Art

verso

ANNE SAVAGE: THE SKEENA RIVER SKETCHES | Cowley Abbott & Ohler’s Fine Art

ANNE SAVAGE Pink Sky, Skeena River, 1927 oil on board inscribed with the artist’s initials “ADS” on the reverse 9 x 12 ins PROVENANCE

Estate of the Artist Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal Mr. Ken Thomson, Toronto Masters Gallery, Calgary Private collection, Calgary EXHIBITED

1920s Modernism, The Beaver Hall Group, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2015, reproduced page 185 Uninvited, Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, reproduced page 54

ANNE SAVAGE: THE SKEENA RIVER SKETCHES | Cowley Abbott & Ohler’s Fine Art

ANNE SAVAGE Skeena River and Mountains, 1927 oil on board inscribed with the artist’s initials “ADS” on the reverse 7.75 x 12 ins PROVENANCE

Estate of the Artist Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal Mr. Ken Thomson, Toronto Masters Gallery, Calgary Private collection, Calgary EXHIBITED

ANNE SAVAGE: THE SKEENA RIVER SKETCHES | Cowley Abbott & Ohler’s Fine Art