On March 5, 1970, artist E. J. Hughes wrote to his sister, Zoie, “Starting in July, I’ll have a change for three months, thanks to the short term grant from Canada Council. Although my income is a lot better now, Zoie, I still need this extra amount in order to break off studio work for any length of time. The change, as I probably mentioned before, is sketching out-of-doors on the nearby areas of the lower east coast of Vancouver Island.”
Every four years, Hughes made trips to gather material for his paintings. “As I don’t plan to sketch more than 50 miles from home,” he continued, “I can come home every night. We have a new Pontiac Laurentian which I hope will keep performing well as it does right now.” His habit was to draw his subjects on location, in pencil, and then paint them in oils years later. Above Ganges Harbour (1974) is one such subject.
From his home at Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island, Hughes drove to Crofton and took the ferry to Salt Spring Island. On the Beddis Bay Road, he stopped to sketch just south of the town of Ganges, where the rocky hillsides of Galiano Island form an engaging backdrop.
In contrast to the Group of Seven, who typically painted uninhabited landscapes, Hughes was a subtle social historian. A house under construction is featured, the first of a new subdivision. This was surely a sign of things to come on Salt Spring, the most populous of the Gulf Islands. The temporary power pole, oil barrels and stacks of lumber, the unfinished road and the missing door—all identify this as a zone in transition. Beneath an impressive cloudscape, Ganges Harbour is busy with fishing boats and pleasure craft, while a BC ferry makes its way to Vancouver through Active Pass on the right.
In 1951, Max Stern of Montreal’s Dominion Gallery purchased everything Hughes had painted and contracted to buy his entire output from that time forward, an arrangement that continued until the gallery closed in 2000. This fine painting of the Gulf Islands was purchased from the gallery shortly after Hughes created it in 1974 and has never before been publicly exhibited. At a glance, Above Ganges Harbour may seem primitive, almost naive. Yet a mastery of technique is evident everywhere in this charming painting by one of Western Canada’s most beloved artists.
(Robert Amos, artist and author)
Mr. Amos is the official biographer of E. J. Hughes and in addition to four books on the artist he has compiled the Hughes Catalogue Raisonne.
