JAMES EDWARD HERVEY (J.E.H.) MACDONALD

Titled verso "Bathurst Street", oil on paperboard circa 1912, certified by the artist's son Thoreau MacDonald in 1969, dimensions 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in); Provenance: from the personal collection of prominent Canadian sculptor Frances M. Gage (1924-2017); present private Ontario collection; James Edward Hervey (J.E.H.) MacDonald, 1873-1932, an English-Canadian artist best known as a founding member of the Group of Seven J.E.H. MacDonald was born near Durham, England, moving to Canada in 1887 at the age of 14, residing in Hamilton; he began his first training as an artist at the Hamilton Art School, later moving to Toronto in 1889 where he studied commercial art and became active in the Toronto Art Students' League; in his early 20's, he began working as a commercial designer at the important art firm Grip Ltd., which further developed his skills; over the next few years, MacDonald continued working in both the Toronto area and London, England, while raising his young son Thoreau with wife Joan Lavis; around the same time this early work was executed in 1912, he organized a show with fellow artist Lawren Harris, and was widely recognized for his contributions to an exhibition at the Ontario Society of Artists; eight years later in 1920, they would form the historic Canadian landscape group of painters known as The Group of Seven; this lovely work depicts an impressionistic landscape view with rural field in the foreground, a man on horse and carriage along a tree-lined road (Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario) at the focal point below a vast blue sky; works from this vintage by MacDonald seldom appear for sale