Carmichael’s love of the La Cloche Hills of Northern Ontario is well known. The artist himself states the area was his “favourite painting place”. Around 1934 Carmichael built a summer home on Cranberry Lake in the La Cloche Mountain region. He and his family spent many a summer at the cabin where Carmichael found plentiful subject matter to capture in his decorative oils and watercolours.

In his panoramic scenes of the 1930s, Camichael explores the range of nature’s aspects from the more intimate and subtle contrasts to the dynamic skies and fantastical colour of the La Cloche hills. The atmospheric qualities in these works present a different artistic response.

There is an intimacy and expanse by placing the viewer in a foreground space, establishing our point of view, then opening out, over the complexity of rocks tress and hills. There is a magic light that fills the space, not only revealing the land to us but transforming the experience of seeing.

Source: Mary Carmichael Mastin and Megan Bice, Light and Shadow: The Work of Franklin Carmichael, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1990