Wesleyville Fleet in the Labrador Sea | 1995 | Etching 71 of 75

About the Artwork

Wesleyville Fleet in the Labrador Sea (1995) is an etching and aquatint by David Blackwood (1941–2022), depicting a humpback whale at the moment its massive tail breaks the surface, with the Wesleyville schooner fleet sailing along the distant horizon.

The vertical composition—unusual for maritime subjects—centres on the whale frozen just before impact with the water. Through what critics call a masterful "trick of perspective," viewers see simultaneously above and below the ocean's surface. The whale's dark body curves downward through gradations of aquamarine, turquoise, and Prussian blue, while white water cascades from its flukes against a grey-violet sky. At the upper horizon, a fleet of sailing schooners representing the Wesleyville fishing fleet appears "strikingly small and fragile" against the creature's immense form. At bottom right, pale ice rises from the depths—a reminder of the Arctic waters these ships navigated.

This scale contrast is intentional and thematically essential. Blackwood's maritime imagery consistently positions humans and their vessels as vulnerable participants in a vast, indifferent natural world. The whale embodies "sublime power"—"as old as Creation"—while the ships represent generations of Newfoundland outport culture struggling to survive in the North Atlantic.

Blackwood sailed these waters as a child aboard his father Captain Edward Blackwood's schooner, the Flora S. Nickerson. He wrote: "I remember the experience vividly. It is a landscape both mysterious and starkly simple—a region of tremendous, even surreal, contrasts of atmosphere, light and character. Its strange, bleak beauty carries an undercurrent of danger, an undefined threat which seems to lurk just below the surface. Moving through it, men and their ships are dwarfed by mountains of ice and by the immensity of the forces of nature that shaped them. One gets a sense that powers as old as Creation move through this watery dreamscape, and that the whales who spectacularly breach and sound into its black depths are somehow an embodiment of this sublime power."¹

Blackwood's whale subjects command exceptional prices: his Fire Down on the Labrador (1980) sold for $193,250 CAD against an estimate of $70,000–$90,000.² In November 2025, the related oil tempera painting In the Labrador Sea (1995)—which shares this etching's composition—sold for $601,250 CAD at Heffel, setting a new auction record for the artist.³ Featured as the frontispiece in William Gough's David Blackwood: Master Printmaker (2001), exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario's major retrospective "Black Ice" (2011) as Catalogue #60, and published in Katharine Lochnan's exhibition catalogue, this work represents the artist at the peak of his powers—created in 1995, two years after receiving the Order of Canada, when he had perfected his etching technique over thirty years.

Dimensions and Details

• Title: Wesleyville Fleet in the Labrador Sea
• Artist: David Blackwood (1941–2022)
• Year: 1995
• Size: 36" × 24" (91.4 × 61 cm)
• Medium: Etching and aquatint on paper
• Edition: 71/75
• Condition: Pristine. This impression has never been displayed and remains in museum-quality condition. Stored in archival darkness since creation, the aquatint tonal gradations from pale aquamarine through turquoise to deep Prussian blue and indigo retain their full range, the white spray detail remains crisp, and the paper remains bright. Colours are noticeably more vibrant than works exposed to ambient light. Professionally framed, hand-signed, titled, dated 1995, and numbered by the artist in pencil.

Acquisition Enquiries

Wesleyville Fleet in the Labrador Sea (71 of 75) is offered exclusively through West End Gallery. Serious acquisition enquiries are welcome. We invite you to contact us directly to arrange a private viewing. Layaway options are available upon request. Shipping is quoted based on location; local delivery within Edmonton and surrounding communities is complimentary.