Artwork by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté,  Paysage

Marc-Aurèle D.F. Suzor-Coté
Paysage

oil on canvas
signed lower right
12 x 26 ins ( 30.5 x 66 cms )

Auction Estimate: $22,000.00$18,000.00 - $22,000.00

Price Realized $18,400.00
Sale date: November 23rd 2017

Provenance:
Sotheby’s Canada, auction, May 12, 1975 (purchased by present owner)
Private Collection, Calgary
Literature:
Dennis Reid, A Concise History of Canadian Painting, third edition, Toronto, 2012, page 107
Largely an artist who isolated himself from any particular artist group or school, Suzor-Coté was heavily influenced by European traditions in landscape painting. Whether depicting his native Arthabaska region in Quebec, or the rural countryside of France outside of Paris, the artist employed a skillful but subtle use of colour in his completed works. Commissioned to be a painter for church interiors and artworks, Suzor-Coté utilized a decorative painterly style in his practice to produce pleasing and calm traditional landscapes. As Impressionism in Europe came about during the artist's career at the end of the nineteenth century, the viewer can see the looser brushwork begin to emerge in this work and the influence of this school take root in Canada.

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Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté
(1869 - 1937) RCA

Suzor-Coté was born in 1869 in the village of Arthabaska, Quebec. Although the young Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté excelled in both musical and artistic pursuits, his love of painting won precedence and he travelled to Paris in 1891 for three years of art studies at the École de beaux-arts. He returned to North America briefly, pursuing commission work, before returning to Europe for an extended period between 1897 and 1907.

By 1906 he had left behind the academic realism of his early work, developing instead a bold impressionistic style. Once back in Canada he found his greatest inspiration in the Canadian landscape itself. He painted landscape in a forceful impressionistic style which was unfamiliar to Canadian audiences of the time.

The multi-talented Suzor-Coté was also easily able to make the shift from painting to working in three dimensions. His bronzes were cast in New York at the Roman Bronze Works, and became sought after by collectors in Canada and the United States. Suzor-Coté won the Jessie Dow prize for best painting at the Art Association of Montreal in 1914 and again in 1925. By 1925, he had made a significant contribution to impressionism in Canada, influencing younger artists to paint the Canadian landscape in a new manner.