Lot 1: Bertram Charles (B.C.) Binning 1909 - 1976

Bertram Charles (B.C.) Binning 1909 - 1976 Canadian oil on board Sea Side Figures 7 1/2 x 10 3/4 inches 19 x 27.3 centimeters signed and dated 1950 and on verso titled on the artist's label Literature:Doreen Walker, B.C. Binning, A Classical Spirit, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1986, the larger version 1950 oil entitled Figures on Seashore listed and reproduced, unpaginated Provenance:Family of Arthur Erickson, Vancouver During the 1950s, B.C. Binning's abstracted symbols were often derived from the objects of the sea. In Sea Side Figures, next to the abstracted figures on the shore are pennants and a tower, possibly a lighthouse. Binning lived near the seashore in West Vancouver, was a sailor, and clearly relished summer life on the sea and beach. In contrast to the whimsy of his recreational pursuits, he was a respected academic who began his career in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of British Columbia, and later founded the Department of Fine Arts there. Binning's striking black background works, such as lot 9 in this sale, were inspired by his revelatory aesthetic reaction to a velvety-black night view of the sea one summer. In this superb work, bright colours are activated by the black and the symbolic forms exude a jaunty energy, while their orderly arrangement cools the composition. Binning was very conscious of this dichotomy between the playful and the classic, stating, "I once said that the business of serious joy should be one of the main occupations of the artist. I do like joy.....I do like order. I think my work plays between two sides of me."