Art gallery owner David Loch found the little-known Franklin Carmichael painting White Pine in Pretoria and purchased it.
"This is a masterpiece," said Loch, who's displaying the oil painting at his St. Mary's Road gallery for one week starting Sunday. "It's great to repatriate it to this country."
The senior curator of the Winnipeg Art Gallery thinks so, too.
"That's great it's come back to Canada," said Mary Jo Hughes. "That in itself is fabulous." But it's the medium of White Pine that makes it even more special, for the artist usually painted with watercolours, she said.
"It's not too often you come across a Carmichael oil. I'd be interested to see it."
Not much was known about the painting, said Loch, whose clients include media magnate billionaire Ken Thomson. Loch helped Thomson acquire some of the $300 million in paintings he donated to the Art Gallery of Ontario last year.
According to Charles Hill, curator of Canadian art at The National Gallery Of Canada in Ottawa, the painting by Carmichael was purchased in 1940 by South Africa's High Commissioner to Canada, David de Waal Meyer. Carmichael donated the 25-by-30 inch White Pine for auction to benefit the Canadian National Committee on Refugees. The painting listed for $200 four years earlier when it failed to sell at a 1936 Canadian Group of Painters Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Toronto.
De Waal Meyer picked it up at the charity auction for $60.
"Back in those days, Canadian art wasn't sought after or collected," said Loch.
In 1944, the High Commissioner returned to South Africa and kept the painting in his Pretoria home till he died in 1990. Loch heard from a client that de Waal Myer's sister in South Africa had inherited the painting and purchased it from her.
Loch said he's already sold it to a Canadian client. White Pine will be part of a Canadian and European Masters' Exhibition at Loch Gallery for a week before moving to Loch's Toronto gallery for display until it goes to its new owner. While he wouldn't discuss the price of the painting, he said he paid $273,000 for a Carmichael painting half the size at a Canadian auction three year ago.
"The competition in Canada is fierce." He avoided the competitive bidding process and was able to buy the painting privately and bring it home.
Carmichael was born in Orillia, Ont., in 1890. He arrived in Toronto in 1911 with some training in commercial art, and soon became an associate of Tom Thomson and other commercial artists who were teaching themselves to be serious painters.
In 1913 he went to Paris to study painting but returned after a short time away to help found the Group of Seven.
By Carol Sanders
The Winnipeg Free Press
City, Thursday, October 30, 2003, p. a3
