Name/Title
Mount Rundle, BanffEntry/Object ID
2014.07.08Description
Print
This landscape depicts Mount Rundle from a treed lakeside. Rundle is a mountain in Banff National Park overlooking the towns of Banff and Canmore, Alberta. The Cree name is “Waskahigan Watchi” or house mountain. The Park is Canada's oldest national park, established in 1885, and is one of the most visited national parks in North America.Artwork Details
Medium
Hand-coloured rotogravure on paperSubject Place
Region
Cascades and PlateauContinent
North AmericaContext
One of Canada's most recognized mountains, Mount Rundle could actually be considered a small mountain range as the mountain extends for over 12 kilometres, eastward from Banff to Canmore with seven distinct peaks.
The artist Walter J. Phillips RCA (1884–1963) described Mount Rundle as his:
"...bread and butter mountain. I never tire of painting it, for it is never the same. In deep shadow in the morning, it borrows a warm glow from the setting sun at the end of the day. Its colour runs the gamut from orange to cold blue-grey, with overtones of violet and intervals of green." Extract: Dave Birrell, 50 Roadside Panoramas in the Canadian Rockies (Surrey, B.C.: Rocky Mountain Books, 2004): 79.Made/Created
Artist Information
Attribution
Joseph Frederick Spalding (1877-1958)Role
PhotographerArtist
UnknownRole
PrintmakerDate made
n.d.Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
PHOTOGRAPHER BIOGRAPHY
Born in London, England, Joseph Spalding was a prolific Canadian commercial photographer, active around B.C. and beyond. Immigrating to Canada in 1898, he first worked as a bookkeeper in Morrissey. He subsequently established himself as a photographer in Fernie in the Elk Valley of southeastern B.C, and partnered with Robert Strathearn as Spalding and Strathearn. After his move to Vancouver in 1924, he became a sales manager with the Gowen Sutton Company Ltd. After working as a solo photographer in the 1930s and 1940s, he started a photo publishing firm, Camera Products, around 1948. He reportedly last worked in photography in 1957.
For some two decades Spalding worked from his Fernie studio and documented local history and events where his photos were used extensively to promote the town, such as in the Fernie Free Press souvenir editions. The town of Fernie was young, founded in 1898 and incorporated in 1904, but it was experiencing rapid economic growth as a result of the discovery of coal seams in the Elk Valley, which subsequently brought in both the railway and the logging industry. Spalding, who advertised himself as an ‘Artistic Photographer’ showed Fernie as a boom town surrounded by beautiful mountain scenery. Many of his images were used as postcards, allowing his photographs to reach out across Canada and perhaps further.
Spalding also found professional success with tourist associations and traveled in Canada, the United States and Mexico. He published a number of illustrated works while in Fernie. Enamoured of automobile tourism, he also published an Official Automobile Road Guide for British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.Inscription/Signature/Marks
Type
InscriptionLocation
On original mat: title written in pen and ink:
MOUNT RUNDLE BANFF, ALT. 9665 ft.
Also printed info (see file). Appears to be page from publication or calendar?
Verso right margin vertical: HAND TINTED (OIL?) ROTOGRAVEUR. PHOTOGRAPHRelationships
Related Entries
Notes
By Joseph Frederick Spalding:
2014.07.08 Mount Rundle, Banff (Attrib.)
2015.01.04 Pyramid Mt. Jasper Park, Alta.
2015.01.12 Consolation Lake Mt. Quadra, Alta.
