November Mists
1942? Oil on Canvas, 30" x 37"

Weston’s imaginative interpretation of the landscape was both celebrated and controversial. The magical qualities of his paintings often sparked public debate about art.

"In the 1940s the Weston painting The Lions and Lawren Harris’ Malign Lake appeared in a Vancouver newspaper over the caption ‘Are These Pictures Art?’"

Weston’s painting, The Lions, as well as several others, were at the centre of a controversy as to whether Canadian children should be exposed to such ‘modern’ paintings. The Weston and Harris paintings had been made into silkscreen prints during World War II and were hung in the Canadian army bases around the world. These prints were also hung in banks, public buildings, and by the 1960s, schools.(21)