Boletus Flavus L. Collected L'Islet County, Que. 1950. [Original watercolor with convolute of related materials]

1950. Original watercolor (17 x 22 cm.), labeled, signed, and dated by the artist in pencil. On watercolor paper which had been mounted on a thicker card stock, now de-laminated, but in remarkably fine condition. Henry A.C. Jackson (1877-1960) was one of Canada's outstanding amateur naturalists. He was the elder brother of landscape painter A.Y. Jackson, and while A.Y. achieved great fame through his art, Henry chose to quietly document his mycological journeys in Quebec through copious note taking and watercolor paintings of the collected specimens. After his death in 1960, much of his work was donated to the National Gallery of Canada. In 1979 The National Gallery mounted an exhibition of the watercolors, and produced the catalogue, Mr. Jackson's Mushrooms which reproduces forty-odd images, and accompanies them with excerpts from his field notes. Very few of Jackson's mushroom watercolors have reached the market, with only a few having been given to friends and neighbors over the years. A small convolute of related materials accompanies the watercolor, including: The Fungus Records of Mr. H.A.C. Jackson from L'Islet Co., Quebec 1941-1960 (offprint from The Canadian Field Naturalist, vol. 7, no. 4 (1963); Notes on the Higher Fungi Collected in Lasalle, Que., 1930-1940 offprint from C.F.N., vol. 62, no. 5. (1948); 18 pages of original manuscript and typescript of Jackson's Field notes from 1932 and 33; three original photographs, 6 x 9 cm. each. Two of the photos depict the artist, at a youthful age, in the field. The third depicts an unidentified fungus on a log.