After prospecting in the goldfields of New Zealand, John Hammond returned to Montreal in 1870 to work with the photographer William Notman. Eight years later he moved to Notman's studio in Saint John, N.B., where he also taught at the Owens Art School, moving to Mount Allison Ladies' College in Sackville in 1893. Although Hammond painted in Europe, China and Japan, and for the Canadian Pacific Railway in the Rockies, he found his favourite subjects around the Tantramar Marshes near Sackville and the Bay of Fundy. His finest paintings are characterized by an overall, glowing light, which here, permeates the becalmed marine, the fishing boats emerging from the yellow blanket of the morning light.
