Franklin Peleg Brownell, RCA, (Canadian/American, 1857-1946)

Sewing under the trees

Sewing under the trees
signed and dated 'F Brownell 17' (lower left); signed with initials and dated 'F.b./17' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
61.2 x 76.5cm (24 1/8 x 30 1/8in).

Exhibited
(probably) Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, Retrospective exhibition of the work of Franklin Brownell, R.C.A., 1-30 November 1922, no. 14.

By 1917, when the present lot was painted, Franklin Brownell was well established as Headmaster at the Women's Art Association of Ottawa (later to become the Art Association of Ottawa). While his own achievements were perhaps overshadowed by those of the Group of Seven, Brownell's work is significant in the history of 20th century Canadian painting. As the catalogue for a 2007 retrospective notes, 'Neither an academic realist, nor a pure impressionist, Brownell could justifiably be called the first among Canadian romantic impressionists: a school of thought and practice preserving the orthodoxy of the perspective system as the basis for creating the illusion of space in a composition, yet free from the structure of realism.'1

Born in Massachusetts, Brownell studied at the Tufts School of The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and at the Académie Julien in Paris, under such luminaries as Bouguereau and Bonnat. While in Paris, Brownell met the Canadian artist William Brymner, who would later recommend Brownell for his teaching position in Ottawa. Moving to Canada in 1886, after a short period in Montreal, Brownell settled in Ottawa, where he spent the rest of his life. In keeping with the disciplined academic tutoring he would have received in Paris, Brownell's early works were often figurative interiors, broadly conforming to the principles of his training; see for example Reading, sold Bonhams Toronto, 30 November 2009, lot 203. He also produced busy street and market scenes, depicting his beloved Ottawa, often in snow.

Brownell's later palette and technique are more aligned to the early impressionists; as the countryside around Ottawa become more accessible, Brownell started to make regular painting trips into the wilds of Quebec, as well as to Algonquin Park in Ontario, producing a series of brightly painted landscapes and lake scenes.

Elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1895, Brownell was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada in 1922, where the present lot was probably exhibited. Capturing a sunlit moment along the riverside, the landscape in the present lot has a strong resemblance to the Gatineau region. The elegant figure, busied at her task, is reminiscent of a figure used in another 1917 work Summertime, which was cited by Eric Brown, then director of the National Gallery of Canada, as an iconic example of Canadian art.2

1 A.K. Prakash, Franklin Brownell Retrospective Exhibition Catalogue, Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, 2007.
2 Leslie Dawn, National Visions, National Blindness, Canadian Art and Identities in the 1920s, Vancouver, 2006, passim: Summertime was reproduced in colour in Brown's article 'Landscape Art in Canada' in Art of the British Empire Overseas (The Studio, 1916-17).