Wood Green And Broadstairs

Art Gallery of Ontario

Wood Green and Broadstairs, 1903, from Gower Sketchbook, graphite and watercolour on wove paper, Art Gallery of Ontario, Gift of Jane and John McNicoll, 2002, 2002/9441. Displayed on a table and under Plexiglas, this is one of 8 sketchbooks at the centre of the last room in the exhibition. This room displays the two artists' works in their own right. A series of five colour prints on paper by Cassatt are on one wall, and on the others are paintings from McNicoll’s travels of landscapes and figures. The vertically oriented sketchbook is 20 cm tall by 16 cm wide and is open to a small watercolour sketch and life drawings of figures in pencil on both of its off-white pages. In the right upper half of the top page is the watercolour which is slightly larger than a business card. Two thirds is of a dramatic sky with towering grey clouds and one patch of pastel blue near the top. The lower third is a landscape with still waters on the left and a sandy beach and an escarpment rising on the right. Patches of grey, blue and brown dot the beach and indicate bathers at the shore. Under the watercolour is a sketch of the rear view of a child holding a pail and walking in the sand wearing a sunhat with a ribboned band. In a sketch to the left, another child, also seen from behind, sways in a swimming dress with horizontal stripes. To the top left and bottom right of the bottom page are inscriptions. The writing at the top left reads: Wood Green May 1903. Under this are three rear view sketches of a barefoot adolescent figure in a skirt. One is standing with their arms in front of them, presumably carrying something. The remaining two sit perched on a ledge, with one facing left with their left knee raised to also rest on the wall. Writing at the bottom right reads Broadstairs 1903. Spaced around the bottom page are 6 walnut sized sketches of scenes that the artist would have seen during a trip to Broadstairs, on the coast of England. Two depict a child in a sun hat playing with a bucket on the beach. Four are of a person in what resembles a long wool bathing dress and beret-shaped swimming cap. They alternately sit up and recline, leaning on an elbow in the sand, with two sketched as outlines with only a few short strokes of pencil. Around 60 additional images from all the sketchbooks are shown on a monitor mounted on the wall nearby. The other sketchbooks in the case are opened to show drawings such as: sketches of models, females in the nude and males wearing only loincloths, seaside landscapes and village scenes, pencil portrait sketches, a young boy leaning on a staircase, women beside an easel talking in an art class, and a man standing behind a tripod with a surveyor’s instrument called a Survey Transit Telescope.