Nova Scotia Guides, Lake Rossignol

The present work was painted upon George Benjamin Luk's 1919 fishing trip to Nova Scotia, where he was likely accompanied by fellow artist Ernest Lawson. "In Nova Scotia he produced a remarkable series of watercolors that met with much critical praise. He later worked some of these images into oil paintings that were equally vivid in color and dramatic in composition and execution. Bold shapes, high vantage points that serve to flatten perspective, and saturated color align these works with modernist tenets. The emphasize purely painterly concerns, eliminating extraneous detail." (E. Kennedy, ed., The Eight and American Modernisms, exhibition catalogue, Chicago, Illinois, 2009, pp. 95-96)