Lot 149: Maurice Galbraith Cullen 1866 - 1934 Canadian oil

Maurice Galbraith Cullen 1866 - 1934 Canadian oil on canvas Dordrecht at Twilight 34 x 44 1/4 inches 86.3 x 112.4 centimeters on verso titled on a label and certified by Cullen Inventory #185 Provenance:Collection of Michel Moreault, former Director of the Dominion Gallery, Montreal, and family Dordrecht at Twilight is evidence of Canadian Impressionist Maurice Cullen's important early connection to Europe. In 1888 when he traveled to Paris to study, Cullen embraced the new breakthrough movement of Impressionism. While based there, he traveled to the French countryside, Italy, North Africa and, before his return to Canada in 1895, to Rotterdam, Holland. In 1901 he was back in Paris, he visited Holland again before his return to Montreal in 1902. Dordrecht, on the Thure River, the location of this fine atmospheric painting, is the oldest city in Holland. Cullen deftly communicates the ambience of twilight in this scene in elements such as the shadowy church spire and the building at the river's edge, with its glowing lights shimmering in the dark water. Cullen had achieved recognition in Europe, but it would be some years before his success took hold in Canada. Soon after his return, artist Clarence Gagnon discovered that Cullen was painting over some of his European paintings due to lack of funds for new materials, making large canvases such as this a rare occurrence in the market.