Lot 66: SIR FREDERICK GRANT BANTING 1891 - 1941

STE. IRENÉE, QUEBEC
signed l.r. on both sides of a double sided panel: BANTING and F.G. BANTING; titled and dated on a label on the reverse: St. Irenée about 1935

21.6 by 26.7 cm. 8½ by 10½ in.

oil on double sided panel; each a complete painting

Toronto, Exhibition of Paintings by the late Sir Frederick Banting, Hart House, University of Toronto, 1943, no. 58

A.Y. Jackson, Banting as an Artist, 1943, p. 30

Wing Commander G.E. Hall

Dr. and Mrs. G.W. Manning, Ottawa, 1972

Estate of the above

Private Collection, London

Although this fine sketch is dated about 1935 on a label on the reverse, it can be dated to 1931 when Banting and his painting companion, A.Y. Jackson were in Ste. Irenée. When one considers Banting's short life span and his obligatory medical commitments, one is impressed by the prodigious number of paintings he produced. As Jackson noted ...his pleasure was in them, in mixing up a lot of colours in a sketch box and all the adventures that led up to it, the freedom from responsibility, scrambling over the unknown country, getting burned by the March sun, smoking a pipe before the camp-fire, the good meals and looking over the day's work.