Lake of Bays

About Lake of Bays

The rugged beauty of the Muskoka region of Northern Ontario is depicted in this serenely beautiful oil painting by Canadian artist Bernice Martin. Her work reflects the influences of some of Canada’s most coveted impressionist painters in both subject—the landscape, and form—small, visible brushstrokes in muted colours. This painting shows the lake in deep blue, highlighted by white waves lapping against the rocky, treed shoreline.
"I look back on my life and my painting hours were the happiest. I'd spend long hours and forget time…my time was always measured by the passage of light." Bernice Fenwick Martin
She was born in Shelburne Ontario in 1902 and studied at the Ontario College of Art under renowned Canadian artists J.W. Beatty and Franklin Carmichael (member of the Group of Seven). Martin went on to study and became friends with Peter Clapham Sheppard, an impressionist painter whom she worked with until his death in 1965. Martin's works have been exhibited at the Royal Canadian Academy from 1945-1947, the T. Eaton Co.'s College Street Fine Art Gallery, Casa Loma, the Quebec Museum of Fine Arts, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her paintings may be found in many private, corporate, and public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada.