Name/Title
Stawamus Chief Rock, Squamish, B.C.Entry/Object ID
2015.01.05Description
Painting
This image depicts Stawamus Chief, officially Stawamus Chief Mountain, looming behind a road with houses, eye-catching laundry drying on the line of the far left house and a line of power poles. The Mountain is one of the largest granite monoliths in the world, and towers some 700 m above the waters of nearby Howe Sound adjacent to the town of Squamish, B.C. The mountain gets its name from the village near its foot, Stawamus (St'a7mes), as is also the case with the Stawamus River and Stawamus LakeArtwork Details
Medium
Watercolour on paperSubject Place
Region
Pacific NorthwestContinent
North AmericaContext
The Squamish First Nations people from this area, consider the Chief to be a place of spiritual significance. The Squamish language name for the mountain is Siám' Smánit (siám' is usually translated as "chief"), and their traditions say it is a longhouse transformed to stone by Xáays, the Transformer Brothers (spirit-beings). The great cleft in the mountain's cliff-face in Squamish legend is a mark of corrosion left by the skin of Sínulhka, a giant two-headed sea serpent.Made/Created
Artist Information
Artist
Albert Edward Sexton (1905-1979)Role
PainterDate made
n.d.Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born in Montréal, Québec, Albert Edward Sexton was a Canadian painter known for his Québec, Maritime and Fraser Valley, B.C. landscapes, as well as Québec city streetscapes. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Montréal; and at the Barnes School of Art, Montréal in the 1920s. His work was influenced by a number of Québec painters including: the lover of Québec's snow-covered landscapes, Robert Pilot RCA, (1898-1967); the father of Impressionism in Canada, Maurice Cullen RCA, (1866-1934); and one of Canada's foremost Modernist painters, James Wilson Morrice (1865-1924). He also traveled and painted in France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany after World War II.
Sexton moved to British Columbia in 1945, and was active in the Fraser Valley Art Group and exhibited with the Western Art Circle, the B.C. Society of Fine Arts and in other Vancouver and area galleries from the late 1960s into the late 1970s.Inscription/Signature/Marks
Type
Signature, LabelLocation
Signed lower right: SextonTranscription
Verso frame paper label from previous frame:
ALBERT E. SEXTON
"STAWAMUS CHIEF"
ROCK
SQUAMISH, B.C.Dimensions
Dimension Description
Visible imageHeight
38.1 cmWidth
55.9 cmAcquisition
Acquisition Method
PurchaseDate
Dec 9, 2014Notes
Lunds Lot #119
