Curated by John Hartman
Nicholas Metivier Gallery is pleased to announce To Love and to Cherish – Paintings from Scotch Pine Island, an exhibition of watercolours by Ann MacIntosh Duff, curated by John Hartman. The exhibition will open on May 7th and run until May 28th, with an opening day reception on Saturday, May 7th. This is MacIntosh Duff's third solo exhibition at the gallery.
Ann MacIntosh Duff specializes in the medium of watercolour, painting landscapes, still-lifes and everyday events in a characteristically whimsical and expressive style. Her works are painted from memory rather than observation.
John Hartman's thoughtful selection for this exhibition centres around Georgian Bay and the watercolours MacIntosh Duff created there in her boathouse studio. MacIntosh Duff's remarkable passion for painting Georgian Bay is admired by Hartman, who has referred to her as ‘the finest watercolourist in Canada’.
All the selected paintings were made at Ann’s island where she spent her summers starting in 1937. She rarely left the island for the two months of the summer. It is a very small island with a well-kept, but basic cabin, with no electricity. It has a sweeping view of the open water of Georgian Bay and a protected harbour at the back of the island with a simple dock and a building at the water’s edge where Ann’s canoe and rowboat are stored for the winter and which Ann used as her studio in the summer. Scotch Pine Island was ‘the’ place that she loved and cherished and the view out her cabin windows and the views of the surrounding islands were her subject matter for decades of painterly inspiration.
– John Hartman
