2013 - $20 - 1 oz Fine Silver Coin - A.Y. Jackson, Saint-Tite-des-Caps

Alexander Young Jackson was the only member of the Group of Seven from Quebec. Born in Montréal on October 3, 1882 he was nine years old when his father left his mother to raise six children on her own. To help her, Jackson left school at the age of twelve to work as an office boy in a lithography studio. There, his interest in art was triggered and he attended evening classes to hone his budding talent.

The Painting: Saint-Tite-des-Caps (1930)
A dead tree graphically anchors the foreground in this romantic depiction of one of Jackson's favourite locales: the shores of the Lower St. Lawrence. For most of the 1920s, Jackson returned to this region almost every year to capture the play of light, colour and texture in late winter and early spring.

The rolling rhythms of the hills and clouds are accentuated by the artist's brushwork and frame the diminutive houses and barns that evoke Jackson's great affection for the human aspects of this dramatic landscape. Anecdotal details—the sweep of a curtain, a shed almost buried in late-season snow, the man cutting the logs with an axe—capture the lyrical quality of an elusive seasonal moment so familiar to the Canadian psyche.

Your coin features an adaptation of A.Y. Jackson's painting, Saint-Tite-des-Caps. In the central field of the reverse image, Royal Canadian Mint engravers have created a stunning interpretation of Jackson's romantic depiction of one of his favourite painting locales of the 1920s and early 1930s: the north shore of the St. Lawrence. Here we see his masterful vision of a transitional moment in the wintry, snow-covered rolling landscape of the region. Jackson's characteristic visual language is evident in his affectionate treatment of the human elements within the natural setting, such as the sleepy snow-capped houses that are the primary subject of the painting and the central image of the coin's reverse. A single, lyrical tree rises in the left portion of the foreground, while the houses are backed by a distant horizon of tall rolling hills and stylized evergreens. In the sky above, high banks of clouds are punctuated with dramatic sun rays. The outer frame on the reverse side features the words “CANADA” and “A.Y. JACKSON” along with the date “2013” and the face value of “20 DOLLARS.”

Specifications

• Mintage 7000
• Composition 99.99% fine silver
• Finish proof
• Weight (g) 31.39
• Diameter (mm) 38
• Edge serrated
• Certificate serialized
• Face value 20 dollars
• Artis tRCM engravers reproduced the painting Saint-Tite-des-Caps by A.Y. Jackson (reverse), Susanna Blunt (obverse)