FAMOUS CANADIAN ARTIST ON RAVEN LAKE
The long history of Canadian Artists in the
Algonquin Park area has resulted in at least one artist having venured onto
Raven Lake to inspire their craft. You can imagine my surprise to find a
watercolour at auction in Calgary with the title "Late Night on Raven
Lake" by Carl Schaefer. Carl Schaefer died in 1995 but is well represented
in Institutional and private collections across Canada including the Art Gallery
of Ontario, and the National Gallery in Ottawa. At first I was skeptical of it's
origin (there is more than one Raven Lake in Canada) until I did some research
on the web and found two other painting by Schaefer that were painted in the
area. One was entitled "Baysville near Dorst" and the other
"Springtime on Raven Lake".
Of course I went to the auction and, while competing with two other bidders, secured this piece of Raven Lake history to grace my livingroom wall and remind me of summers at Raven Lake. The date on the back of the painting was May 17th, 1964, just 35 years ago. Carl would have been 61 at the time.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has a story of famous painters on Raven lake or who can recall hosting a famous painter at the cottage. My dad once told me a story of walking in downtown Toronto in the late 70's and seeing a painting of our old dock at the south end of the landing entitled "McMurray's Dock" but can't recall the artist. My e-mail is Ravenlake2@shaw.ca
Sincerely,
Mark McMurray, Calgary Canada
