Frank Panabaker's Georgian Bay

I'm a sucker for ragged pine paintings. This delightful one is by the late Frank Panabaker. I like it for several reasons.  It doesn't impressionistically blur the edges of reality but on the other hand, it's charged with a sort of sublime, natural emotion.  You can almost feel the bite of the autumn wind and hear the pounding of the waves upon the shore. Don't you like it when a painting, pulls your experiences out like that?

The above picture is posted on HistoricalCanadianart.com,  I did an internet search and found a number of works by Panabaker and it seems that he painted a number of variations on the Georgian Bay, ragged pine theme - which isn't uncommon. Artists frequently get off on the process of exploring a single subject.

The Panabaker biographer on historicalcanadianart.com, writes:

"His work embraced a wide range of subjects, and his output was large, two or three paintings per week for most of his productive years. Most of them were landscapes, although he also executed many portraits. While many of his landscapes were repetitive, produced for a clientele who wished similar types of work, his genius lay in the outdoor sketches made in all weathers and across the country, which inspired and were the foundation of the paintings. As we recognise the skills required of the pleinair artist--of colour balance, tonal control, mixed with knowledge of paint behaviour and sensitivity to every mood of the landscape even under the most severe conditions--Panabaker's special abilities will be more widely appreciated.

Frank Panabaker lived between 1904 - 1992.

Please click here to see the Historical Canadian Art article.