Lot 161: William Percival (W.P.) Weston 1879 - 1967

William Percival (W.P.) Weston 1879 - 1967 Canadian oil on canvas Near Hope, BC 22 x 26 inches 55.9 x 66 centimeters signed and on verso signed and titled Literature:Letia Richardson, Silence and Solitude: The Art of W.P. Weston, 1993, page 9 Provenance:Acquired directly from the Artist by a Private Collection, Vancouver Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, November 9, 2000, lot 253 Private Collection, USA W.P. Weston received his art training in England, but when he emigrated to Canada, taking a teaching job in Vancouver in 1909, he soon realized he had to jettison his previous aesthetic in order to capture the grandeur of the West Coast. As he explained, "I didn't want to paint any of the old civilized landscape; I'd been brought up on it. [I wanted to] see the wild of things, the mountains, the trees." A keen outdoorsman, Weston hiked into the mountains and sailed his star-class boat around the coast, absorbing the primeval landscape. He sought to embody British Columbia's rugged beauty in his paintings. In this stunning painting, Weston captured a great vitality, from the surging creek to the evergreens bending in the wind, and in the foreground, leaning snags and fallen trees give evidence to the passage of powerful wind through the valley. Finally, rising above it all is a majestic snow-capped mountain, massive yet ethereal, a towering presence in this fresh and exhilarating scene.