A passionate sportsman who drew inspiration from spending time in the wilderness, DuMond traveled to Canada each summer to fish for salmon on Cape Breton Island, most likely the setting for the present work. The genial DuMond made his annual flyfishing trips in the company of other artists, particularly his close friend Willard Metcalf, who accompanied him north on at least 18 occasions, and may in fact be one of the figures represented in The Canyon Pool.

In a powerful composition of receding diagonal planes, DuMond evokes the rugged beauty of Nova Scotia's famed salmon fishing grounds, while simultaneously conveying an intimate view. The area's spectacular topography, with steep glacially-carved gorges along a geologic fault line, produces deep "canyon pools" of clear, cold water, ideal spawning ground for Atlantic salmon. Here, DuMond's trademark brilliant greens and purple-toned shadows define the clear atmosphere and unspoiled beauty of this isolated spot, conveying the deep love of nature that remained perhaps the most enduring source of inspiration in the artist's work.

An inscription on the painting's original stretcher identifies the figures as DuMond and Metcalf, although it is nearly impossible to know for certain if this is the case. Though DuMond and Metcalf's friendship "may have been the most solid and enduring of both mens' lives,"DuMond's wife, Helen, reportedly disapproved of the twice-married Metcalf, who was never invited to their summer home [Elizabeth DeVeer, Sunlight and Shadow: The Life and Art of Willard L. Metcalf, (New York: Abbeville Press, 1987), pp. 83, 120]. Accordingly, their midsummer salmon fishing trips came to embody an important part of the two artists' friendship, allowing them to spend time together, painting, fishing and enjoying the company of other artists in the scenic Canadian wilderness, away from domestic tensions and distractions. Though other artists were part of the group, so closely did DuMond identify these trips with Metcalf that he chose to scatter Metcalf's ashes in a Canadian fishing stream after his death in 1925, writing his mother:

Once more I am on my way to Newfoundland - this time alone, for as you know Mr. Metcalf, my life-long friend, passed away about three months ago and left me with a feeling of loneliness that I makefforts to dispel. But all the same it does seem so unreal to be going over this journey step by step. We have taken it together for eighteen years and now this time I'm alone - at least in body. [September 1925, Frank Vincent DuMond Papers, Archives of American Art, reel N70/75, frame 231]

Given the use of symbolism that scholars including Barbara Rizza Mellin have observed in DuMond's work, it is tempting to identify the sketching figure -- cast in shadow -- as the departed Metcalf, perpetually there in spirit, if not in actuality ["Frank Vincent DuMond, American Art Review vol. XIII no. 3 (2001), p. 100].

DuMond taught at New York's Art Students League for 59 years, becoming one of the most renowned and beloved teachers in the history of American art. His students included John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe and Norman Rockwell, artists who worked in styles extremely different from DuMond -- and from each other. Rather than molding students to paint in his own style, DuMond exhorted them to draw from life experiences, advice he himself took to heart. As Ogden Pleissner -- another prominent student whose work shares a close kinship with DuMond's - observed in 1951:

His philosophy of teaching has never been one dealing with the mere manipulation of pigment on canvas, nor with keeping abreast of each new "ism" that appears on the horizon, but with timeless fundamental principles. He has most eloquently shown his students that the true source of inspiration and learning is not alone in the painted work of the masters, but primarily in life - the very life they are living. This point of view has kindled the creative urge and imagination in his students during this past half century. [reprinted in Memorial Exhibition of Paintings by Frank Vincent DuMond, N.A., p. 3]

But as scholars Jeffrey Andersen and William Gerdts have observed, DuMond's larger-than-life reputation as a teacher has until recently deflected the spotlight from the artist's own work, which remains "much in need of study" [The Harmony of Nature, p. 4; American Impressionism (New York: Abbeville Press, 1984), p. 224].

Because fishing, in particular, continued to be an important subject for DuMond over the course of his long career, it is difficult to ascertain an exact date for the present work. As far back as 1891, DuMond combined a religious subject and a fishing theme in his entry for the Paris Salon, Christ and the Fishermen, 1891 (collection Stephen V. DeLange and N. Robert Cestone). The artist exhibited some sporting-oriented fishing works (including several set on the Margaree River) in his solo exhibitions at New York's Milch Galleries in 1926 and 1929; and in 1939 he exhibited a group of fishing subjects at the Providence Art Club. Though his memorial exhibition catalogue assigns a date of 1944 to the work, existence of similar landscape subjects and prior confusion over the work's title suggests it could have been painted 10-15 years earlier.

DuMond is represented in a number of prestigious public and private collections, including the Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA; The National Academy of Design, New York, NY; the Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, CT; the Cummer Art Museum, Jacksonville, FL; The Delaware Art Museum; Wilmington, DE; The New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT; the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York, NY; and the Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; among many others.