Description:

Frederick Grant Banting (1891-1941), Canadian
COBALT, CA. 1932

oil on panel
artist stamp to frame verso; titled and dated to exhibition label verso
11 x 13 in — 27.9 x 33 cm

Estimate: $25,000—35,000 CAD

    Provenance:
  • Artist's studio
    Beatrice McElroy Reid, ca. 1937
    Mary Millard, Toronto, ON, ca. 1973
    Donald Taylor, Toronto, ON, 1977
    Valerie Taylor, Toronto, ON, 1998
    By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto, ON
  • Dimensions:
  • 11 x 13 in — 27.9 x 33 cm
  • Artist Name:
  • Frederick Grant Banting (1891-1941)
  • Exhibited:
  • Cobalt: A Mining Town and the Canadian Imagination. McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, ON, 18 Nov-21 Apr 2024 no. L2023.155. Toured to Art Gallery of Algoma, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, 30 May-12 Oct 2024.
  • Literature:
  • Catharine Mastin, Cobalt: A Mining Town and the Canadian Imagination. Kleinburg: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 2024, illustrated 195.

    Reference:
    D.B.G. Fair, Banting & Jackson: An Artistic Brotherhood. London Regional Art & Historical Museums and The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, 1997.
    Stephen Eaton Hume, Frederick Banting: Hero, Healer, Artist. Lantzville, B.C.: XYZ Publishing, 2001.
    A.Y. Jackson, Frederick Banting as an Artist, Toronto: Ryerson, 1943.
  • Medium:
  • oil on panel
  • Notes:
  • In late September 1932, Dr. Frederick Grant Banting of insulin fame and Nobel Prize winner in Medicine (1923) arrived in Cobalt, Ontario to meet up with A.Y. Jackson where they sketched together into mid-October. They first met at Toronto’s Arts & Letters Club in 1927 and soon became close friends. Jackson took Banting under his tutelage with a trip to the Arctic, followed by trips to Saint Fidèle and Saint-Irène, Quebec.

    Banting respected the rhythm in Jackson’s landscapes, remarking that, “Rhythm in a picture is a subtle something which cannot be described but only felt (If a painting has not got rhythm it is not a Jackson).”[1] Banting appreciated these excursions as they gave him much needed time away from the public life his medical career demanded.

    By the time Banting arrived in Cobalt, the place was an environmental calamity after three decades of silver extraction. Banting produced sketches of the derelict mines and residential areas. They experienced poor weather including rain and snow. As Jackson recalled to a friend, a storm had made the roads almost impassable, cars were stalled all over, and nearly a foot of snow was piled on top of everything. Both Banting and Jackson made good use of the fresh snow to pretty up the ruins in Cobalt, but not in this sketch which presents a harsher reality of Cobalt’s then lifeless hills and broken-down structures. Three power poles in the far distance lean awkwardly from lack of maintenance but they do bring attention to the towering mine shaft and sky, Banting’s principal subjects. It was on a clear day that Banting painted this accomplished sketch with its deep blue sky and two huge cumulus clouds.

    Cobalt only formed a small element of Banting’s painting activities, but his work there was significant enough for inclusion in his memorial retrospective at Hart House, University of Toronto held in February 1943, after Banting’s regrettable death in a plane crash during war service on February 21, 1941 at age 49.

    [1] Catharine Mastin, Cobalt: A Mining Town and the Canadian Imagination (Kleinburg: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 2024), 104.

    Contributed by Catharine Mastin, PhD, an independent curator and writer. She was the guest curator of Cobalt: A Mining Town and the Canadian Imagination presented at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg in 2024 and author of the accompanying catalogue. She is currently writing the first biography on Franklin Carmichael.

  • Condition:
  • Very good overall condition.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
CA$0 CA$199 CA$10
CA$200 CA$499 CA$20
CA$500 CA$999 CA$50
CA$1,000 CA$1,999 CA$100
CA$2,000 CA$4,999 CA$200
CA$5,000 CA$9,999 CA$500
CA$10,000 CA$19,999 CA$1,000
CA$20,000 CA$49,999 CA$2,000
CA$50,000 CA$99,999 CA$5,000
CA$100,000 CA$299,999 CA$10,000
CA$300,000 CA$999,999 CA$25,000
CA$1,000,000 CA$1,999,999 CA$50,000
CA$2,000,000 CA$2,999,999 CA$100,000
CA$3,000,000 CA$4,999,999 CA$200,000
CA$5,000,000 + CA$300,000