Lot 2: SIR FREDERICK GRANT BANTING 1891 - 1941

SIR FREDERICK GRANT BANTING 1891 - 1941 ST. TITE DES CAPS, QUEBEC signed lower right F.G. Banting ; signed, titled and dated Ap. 1937 by the artist on the reverse oil on panel 21.6 by 26.7 cm. 8 ½ by 10 ½ in.

First Annual Art Exhibition of the American Physician's Art Association, San Francisco Museum of Art, June, 1938

Barry Fair, Banting and Jackson, An Artistic Brotherhood, London, 1997, p. 24

The Heffer Gallery, Cambridge
Zwicker's Gallery, Halifax, November, 1994
Private Collection, Nova Scotia

This outstanding sketch by Banting was painted in April of 1937 at St. Tite-des-Caps on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River. It was the last trip that Banting would take with his friend and mentor A.Y. Jackson.

For Banting, the painting trips with Jackson offered him a reprieve from the pressures of research and he could relax and paint for long stretches at a time. Banting learned from Jackson how to simplify his painting and capture colour, form and texture with the same bold yet subtle appreciation of values as Jackson.

As Barry Fair notes: "The final products were usually simple, colourful, well-designed, picturesque sketches. His joy came from the act of creating."