Tunnel Mountain

Walter Joseph Phillips

Tunnel Mountain is located in the Bow River Valley of Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Also known as Buffalo Mountain by the Siksika (Blackfoot) and Nakoda tribes, it resembles a sleeping bison when viewed from the north and east. Here, Phillips' penchant for atmospheric landscapes is on full display. He has captured the low-lying peak draped in the blue shadows of early morning. A blanket of snow covers the midground up to a dark treeline, and the sky is clear and bright. Distant peaks are limned in the rose gold of a dawning sun.

The impressions of these woodcuts vary from print to print; in the early days there were no good instruction manuals and he learned by experimentation. In 1924 he made a trip to England where he met Seaby and Giles and, most importantly, Yoshijiro Urushibara who had been brought from Japan to England to teach the British color woodcut artists how to size and use the Japanese papers. After this his color became sharper and more consistant.

Phillips did this composition in two states, this one and another version with a dark blue sky.