Old Orchard by Franklin Carmichael
Franklin Carmichael
Old Orchard
oil on board
signed and dated 1940 lower right; signed with insignia, dated 1940 and inscribed “16” on the reverse
30 x 36 ins ( 76.2 x 91.4 cms )
Auction Estimate: $500,000.00 - $700,000.00
Price Realized $475,000.00
Sale date: June 12th 2017
Acquired directly from the Artist by Herbert Laurence Rous
By descent to the current Private Collection, Toronto
68th Annual Exhibition of the Ontario Society of Artists, The Art Gallery of Toronto, March 1-31, 1940, cat. no. 23
Paintings and Water Colours, Canadian National Exhibition, 1940
Franklin Carmichael, Memorial Exhibition, The Art Gallery of Toronto, March, 1947, cat. no. 15 (exhibited as “Apple Orchard”)
Light and Shadow, The Work of Franklin Carmichael, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, 1990, cat. no. 59
In the Spirit of Carmichael: Orillia's One of Seven, Orillia Museum of Art and History, April 27 - July 9, 2005
Megan Bice, Light and Shadow, The Work of Franklin Carmichael, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, pages 7, 66, 86, 97, 105, reproduced page 90
68th Annual Exhibition of the Ontario Society of Artists, The Art Gallery of Toronto, March 1-31, 1940, listed page 6
Paintings and Water Colours, Canadian National Exhibition, 1940, listed, unpaginated
Rous & Mann Press Limited Calendar, 1946, reproduced on cover
Robert Eyre and Donald W. Buchanan, Canadian Art, Volume IV, Number 4, Summer, 1947, reproduced on cover
Joyce Sowby, “Quality Printing: A History of Rous and Mann Limited, 1909-1954,” DA, A Journal of the Printing Arts, Number 51, Fall/Winter 2002, page 14
Carmichael's connection to commercial art would remain strong throughout his career, the artist spending “twenty-one years of his life working as a commercial artist and designer and the remaining fourteen years of his career teaching its methods to others.” Hired as Carmichael's young apprentice in 1919 at Rous and Mann (Carmichael was the head designer at the firm at the time), Casson remarked that “over the years we became close friends and associates in the art world. He took me on many sketching trips...Everything I know about the craft of painting he taught me.”
In 1919, Franklin and Ada Carmichael bought a home in Lansing, now the Willowdale area of Toronto. The new home was in close proximity to where the Carmichaels enjoyed leisurely activities in the summer and winter months, as well as where Carmichael would sketch when time permitted. He would spend many years in Lansing, “[enjoying] the rewards and obligations of family life.” His full-time work as a commercial artist kept him close to home, remaining an artist dedicated to painting the Ontario landscape.
The artist did not record and journal as many other Group of Seven members did, however, in the limited notes that do exist, Carmichael acknowledges his close connection to chosen subject matter. “A profound interest of 'intimacy' with the actual subject matter was paramount, and automatically involved the artist's emotional response.” Undoubtedly, Carmichael's deep relationship with his surroundings is underscored in his masterwork, “Old Orchard”. Megan Bice writes: “Around 1940, Carmichael's freedom to roam from his Lansing home was restricted, particularly by the gasoline rationing of wartime. ‘Old Orchard’ is the view out his studio window, across his property to the neighbouring house... [A]s in ‘Farm, Haliburton’, the trees dominate the scene. Although an orchard is a man-made woods, the group of aging trees pictured here has become a powerful, twisted outgrowth of its more domesticated, cultivated predecessor. As well, the painting reveals the artist's long infatuation with the growth and forms of trees, whether youthful saplings or the oversized and majestic monuments of age.”
In “Old Orchard” we are reminded of the broken and leafless branches of “Frood Lake” (1939), yet now, the branches found in the foreground are draped in dramatic shadow, the strong sunlight approaching from behind. All at once, the grouping of towering apple trees brings to mind concepts of “order and tangle, delicacy and mass, man and nature.” So much of Carmichael's work centres on such dualities, the artist continually exploring magnificent contrasts of light and dark and stillness and movement within the wondrous Canadian landscape. Nature is both delicate and forceful in “Old Orchard,” with the magic of sunlight touching on the leaves that rustle in the soft wind. Carmichael allows us a glimpse of his most intimate surroundings, the strong colours, magnificent contours and the viscosity of paint heightening the painting's overall dramatic effect.
The National Gallery of Canada’s collection includes three works of art directly related to “Old Orchard.” Two preparatory works: a mixed media work on paper (”Study for Old Orchard,” circa 1940, NGC no. 37187) and an oil sketch (“Study for Old Orchard,” 1939, NGC no. 38420) were gifted by Carmichael’s daughter, Mary Mastin, to the institution, while a wood engraving of the subject (“Old Orchard,” circa 1940, NGC no. 36868) was purchased by the gallery in 1993. Each of the three present slight variations of the signature work’s composition while maintaining the command of the orchard’s trees in the foreground.
“Old Orchard” was exhibited twice by Carmichael during the year of its completion, Carmichael including the painting in both the Ontario Society of Artists Exhibition and the Canadian National Exhibition’s Painting and Water Colour showing in 1940. The importance of the painting and its role in representing the celebrated career of Franklin Carmichael would be fully realized following the death of the artist in 1945. “Old Orchard” was reproduced on the cover of the Art Gallery of Toronto’s Carmichael Memorial Exhibition in 1947 and was also featured on the cover of the Summer issue of Canadian Art magazine during the same year.
This painting was acquired from the artist by Herbert Laurence Rous of Rous and Mann Limited in the early 1940s and has remained in the family's collection until this offering.
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Franklin Carmichael
(1890 - 1945) Group of Seven, OSA, RCA, CSPWC
Born in Orillia, Ontario, he worked for his father who was a carriage maker and received a good part of his early training in design from him. He took painting lessons from Canon Greene (believed to be one of the parsons on which Stephen Leacock based the character of Dean Drone in “Sunshine Sketches”). In 1901 he met Willian J. Wood another Canadian artist who like himself was aspiring to become a full time painter. Carmichael gave continued encouragement to Wood throughout his life.
In 1911 Carmichael arrived in Toronto and attended the Ontario College of Art where he studied under William Cruikshank and G.A. Reid, also at the Toronto Central Technical School under Gustav Hahn. He began an apprenticeship at the Grip Engraving firm in 1911 where he met Thomson, Lismer, McDonald, Varley and others with whom he sketched on week ends and holidays. A.Y. Jackson in his autobiography described Carmichael in these words, “Frank Carmichael was the youngest member of the original Group, a lyrical painter of great ability and a fine craftsman. He was never free to devote all his time to painting...” It was in 1913 however, that Carmichael had saved enough money to study in l'Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Antwerp, Belgium, under Isidor Apsomer and G. Van Du Leben. On his return to Toronto in the winter of 1914-15 he shared accommodation in the Studio Building with Tom Thomson until he married and established a home.
In the following years he worked for Rous and Mann and Sampson-Matthews. As art director for one of these firms he had as an assistant, A.J. Casson from 1919 to 1926. He was a successful industrial designer with a speciality in kitchen utensils and has been credited with introducing the oval dish pan for a steelwares firm. In his paintings he chose Northern Ontario landscapes, and villages of trim box like homes. In 1925 Carmichael helped form the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour with A.J. Casson and F.H. Brigden, a society which kept alive interest and development in this medium.
Paul Duval in his book “Group of Seven Drawings” noted Carmichael was better known for his graphic art and wood engravings, particularly in book illustration. He designed and illustrated Grace Campbell “The Higher Hill” all published by Collins of Canada. Most of his painting before 1925 was done in oils, but after that date he turned to watercolours, block prints, and engravings.
He won a silver medal in 1926 at the Sesquicentennial Exposition. In 1932 A.H. Robson wrote, “...His principal reputation to-day rests upon his water-colour paintings in which the medium he has attained an enviable reputation of organization, beauty of design, and the charm of subtle and refined colour.” This was written in the year that Carmichael left the commercial art field for a teaching post at the Ontario College of Art where he remained head of the Graphic and Commercial Art Department until his death.
Keenly interested in music he played the bassoon, cello and flute, and took part in the University Orchestra presentations and other group performances. In 1936 he exhibited in the Group of Seven retrospective show in Toronto. A memorial exhibition of his paintings, and woodcuts was held at the Art Gallery of Toronto in 1947. Another exhibition of his work at the Mount Slavein School, Orillia, in 1960. He is represented in the collections of The Art Gallery of Ontario, Hart House, University of Toronto; Vancouver Art Gallery; St. Hilda's College Toronto; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; National Gallery of Canada by a dozen or more paintings; National Gallery of South Africa, and in many private collections.
He was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists (1917) (Pres. 1938); Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (1925 Founding Member); Canadian Group of Painters (1933 Founding Member); Royal Canadian Academy (ARCA 1935 RCA 1938); Arts and Letters Club, Toronto.
Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume I: A-F", compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1977
