James Edward Hervey MacDonald
(1873 - 1932) Group of Seven, OSA, RCA
Previously Sold Works
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
High Park
oil on board
signed with initials and dated 1911 lower left; inscribed “J.E.H. MacDonald”, titled, dated and certified by Thoreau MacDonald on the reverse
7 x 5 ins ( 17.8 x 12.7 cms )
Auction Estimate: $14,000.00 - $18,000.00
Price Realized $17,700.00
Sale date: May 29th 2018
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
High Park
oil on board
signed with initials and dated 1911 lower left; inscribed “J.E.H. MacDonald”, titled, dated and certified by Thoreau MacDonald on the reverse
7 x 5 ins ( 17.8 x 12.7 cms )
Auction Estimate: $15,000.00 - $20,000.00
Price Realized $18,000.00
Sale date: December 1st 2022
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Summer Landscape
oil on canvas, laid on board
signed and dated 1902 lower right
8 x 9.5 ins ( 20.3 x 24.1 cms )
Auction Estimate: $12,000.00 - $15,000.00
Price Realized $14,160.00
Sale date: May 29th 2018
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Shoreline Landscape
oil on board
signed with initials and dated 1912 lower right
7.25 x 9.5 ins ( 18.4 x 24.1 cms )
Auction Estimate: $15,000.00 - $20,000.00
Price Realized $14,160.00
Sale date: November 20th 2018
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Backyard, West Toronto
oil on board
signed with initials and dated 1912 lower left; signed, titled, dated 1912 and inscribed “Glenlake House” on the reverse
6.25 x 9.25 ins ( 15.9 x 23.5 cms )
Auction Estimate: $12,000.00 - $15,000.00
Price Realized $14,160.00
Sale date: November 20th 2018
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Birch Woods
watercolour
signed with initials lower left
10 x 7 ins ( 25.4 x 17.8 cms ) ( sight )
Auction Estimate: $5,000.00 - $7,000.00
Price Realized $4,425.00
Sale date: May 28th 2019
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Laurentian Hillside, 1913
oil on book binder’s board
initialed lower left; signed and inscribed “Sketch for Laurentian Hillside” on the reverse
6 x 8 ins ( 15.2 x 20.3 cms )
Auction Estimate: $20,000.00 - $30,000.00
Price Realized $17,250.00
Sale date: December 6th 2023
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Laurentian Hillside, October 1914
oil on canvas
signed and dated 1914 lower right; inscribed “$850.00” on the reverse
30.25 x 40.5 ins ( 76.8 x 102.9 cms )
Auction Estimate: $250,000.00 - $350,000.00
Price Realized $230,000.00
Sale date: December 6th 2023
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Church by the Sea, N.S., 1922
oil on board
signed, titled, dated 1922 and inscribed "Petite Rivière/1922" on the reverse; titled to a gallery label on the reverse
4.25 x 5.25 in ( 10.8 x 13.3 cm )
Auction Estimate: $125,000.00 - $175,000.00
Price Realized $95,000.00
Sale date: May 28th 2025
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Untitled Landscape
oil on panel
8.5 x 10.5 ins ( 21.6 x 26.7 cms )
Auction Estimate: $0.00
Price Realized $18,000.00
Sale date: June 23rd 2012
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Church by the Sea
lithograph
signed in the lower margin
5.5 x 6.5 ins ( 14 x 16.5 cms )
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Atlantic Breakers (Barbados)
oil on board
signed (twice), dated 1932 and inscribed “Barbados” on the reverse; titled upon two gallery labels on the reverse of the framing
8.5 x 10.5 ins ( 21.6 x 26.7 cms )
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY MACDONALD
Church by the Sea
lithograph
signed in the lower right margin
5.5 x 6.5 ins ( 14 x 16.5 cms ) ( subject )
Consignments
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J.E.H. MacDonald Biography
(1873 - 1932) Group of Seven, OSA, RCA
James Edward Hervey MacDonald, painter was born in Durham, England on 12 May 1873. Among the Group of Seven, of which he was a founder, J.E.H. MacDonald was one of the best trained, first at the Hamilton Art School from about 1887 and, after 1889, in Toronto lithography houses and at the Central Ontario School of Art and Design, where he studied with William Cruikshank. In 1895 he joined Grip Ltd, an important commercial art firm, where he encouraged the staff (which included Tom Thomson from about 1907) to develop as painters. MacDonald was a key member of the later Group. Lawren Harris recalled that a show of MacDonald's in 1912 at the Ontario Society of Artists gave him his first recognition of the Group's "ethos."
MacDonald was Harris's greatest early friend among the Toronto painting community. Together in 1913 they went to the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY, to see the survey of Scandinavian landscape painting which was to influence their work. Around this time MacDonald introduced more colour into his dark panels. Algoma, north of Lake Superior, which he visited several times with Harris's help from 1919, became the country of his heart. His best paintings were done there, often of great vistas in a turbulent, patterned style. The sketch Mist Fantasy, Sand River, Algoma (1920, National Gallery of Canada) shows how he used the sketches he made in Algoma: the finished canvas (1922, now in the Art Gallery of Ontario), with its long ribbons of mist, was noted by a later critic as the height of MacDonald's way of stylizing form. In 1924 he made the first of 7 trips to the Rockies, another favourite painting place.
MacDonald's palette was dark, tough and rich, like A.Y. Jackson's, but his colouring was more fiery and his style more elegant. His sense of composition was oriented towards his meditation on design, a subject in which he was a master (he was the greatest calligrapher of the period and a designer of consequence). Like other members of the Group, he loved Chinese and Japanese art.
Among other tasks he performed was the decoration of St Anne's Church, Toronto (1923), and teaching at the Ontario College of Art. He also wrote poetry after a nervous breakdown in 1917. He was an eccentric gardener and enjoyed playing on a set of chimes made of old plough points. One of his favourite authors was Henry David Thoreau, for whom he named his son, illustrator Thoreau MacDonald. The artist died in Toronto on 26 November 1932.
