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ALEXANDER YOUNG JACKSON, O.S.A., R.C.A.INDIAN HOME, 1926, oil on panel; signed, with a finished oil sketch of Lake Superior on the reverse, also signed 8.5 ins x 10.5 ins; 21.6 cms x 26.7 cms Provenance: Laing Galleries, TorontoPrivate Collection, British ColumbiaLiterature: A.Y. Jackson, A Painter's Country: the autobiography of A.Y. Jackson, Clarke Irwin & Company Limited, Toronto, 1958, pages 89-90.Naomi Jackson Groves, A.Y.'s Canada, Clarke, Irwin & Company, Toronto/Vancouver, 1968, pages 152-165 for an extensive discussion of Jackson's Skeena visit and related drawings.Wayne Larsen, A.Y. Jackson: The Life of a Landscape Painter, Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2009, pages 130-132.Note: Larsen writes: "The Skeena River had long been the home of several Aboriginal communities including the Gitksan people...The arrival of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway...and discovery of gold in the Yukon [saw a] rapid encroachment of the white world [which] was believed to pose a serious threat to the local Gitksan culture, and it was felt by many...that the old ways had to be preserved before they disappeared completely. [Anthropologist Marius] Barbeau had made several trips out to the West Coast and was well acquainted with the people of the Skeena. In the summer of 1926, he returned to the region...to provide a visual record of the area...inviting Jackson and Edwin Holgate to accompany him. Barbeau was also working on a novel set in the region, The Downfall of Temlaham, and it was hoped that some of the images produced by the two artists might be used to illustrate the book...Jackson...was immediately struck by the creative possibilities in the lush scenery...[and said], 'The Indian villages are almost as fine as the Quebec villages and the backgrounds more exciting.'" Larsen continues, "Together Jackson and Holgate sketched the small villages, the sacred grave houses, and other aspects of the Gitksan settlements...In October, after several weeks working nearly 320 kilometres upriver, Jackson and Holgate travelled all the way down to the mouth of the Skeena at Port Essington...and there Jackson found the subject that inspired what would become one of his favourite works - Indian Home. Judging from the original pencil sketch, the house appears abandoned, almost lost in the overgrowth of tall grass...placing three figures - a mother and her two children - in front of the tiny house...His figures were rarely more than a few dabs of paint, barely noticeable within the composition. The implication was that they were part of the landscape - an indigenous people rooted to their environment."Jackson Groves describes the artist's work from this period as "delectable" and references "several studies of one peaked-roofed house that eventually became the canvas Indian Home...that A.Y. still considers one of his best."In his autobiography, A.Y recalls: "Holgate and I made many drawings of the totem poles around Kitwanga, where Campbell [a CN Railway engineer hired by Barbeau] was straightening them up and setting them in good concrete foundations. For our purposes, we preferred the poles leaning forward or backward, and suggested to Campbell he set them that way. Campbell's comment on this was brief. 'I would do anything I could...to please you artists, but as an engineer I cannot put up leaning totem poles. You can make them lean any way you like in your drawings.'"