Frederick Banting, the Canadian doctor who codiscovered insulin, cringed at seeing his name in the newspaper.

The diffident farm boy from Alliston, Ont. was under the media’s microscope after winning the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1923, and no detail was too personal for print. The Toronto Daily Star published his divorce on the front page, including allegations that he cheated on his wife with a “Toronto woman writer.”

Reporters also mocked his shyness. “A legend is arriving that he can hardly say ‘Boo’ to a goose,” a 1923 Star clipping said.

So it’s no surprise that Banting kept his life as a painter secret.

Only a few close friends knew of Banting’s painting trips into the wilderness with A.Y. Jackson, one of the original members of the Group of Seven. Together the pair practised open air painting, carting their easels across the Canadian North to capture moody landscapes.

And now, a rare Banting canvas is up for sale in Toronto.

The piece, titled “French River”, depicts a rocky bluff spotted with ribbons of milky snow and warm grasses. The work, which is open to public viewing at the University of Toronto Art Centre starting Saturday, was painted during a trip with Jackson to the Sudbury area.

“He was, in fact, quite a good painter and wanted to become a full-time artist,” said Robert Heffel, whose auction has estimated that the piece will command between $40,000 to $60,000.

Banting prized his painting trips. “He didn’t like the city, he didn’t like social climbing,” said Stephen Eaton Hume, a University of Victoria professor who wrote the book Fredrick Banting. “When he and Jackson would check into a hotel on sketching trips, he would sign in under another name because he was world famous and didn’t want to be bothered.”

Painting was a part-time passion for which Banting had a natural talent.

“He had the one thing that’s important for a landscape painter — he had a feel ... he was like the rest of us [in the Group of Seven] and painted what he had some heart and soul in,” said A.J. Casson, another Group of Seven artist.

The high estimate for Banting’s “French River” — a lowball guess according to Heffel — is due to low supply and high demand. Banting only painted about 200 canvasses, records show, with the most expensive, “Rooftops, Quebec City,” selling for $76,050 in 2008.

A small faction of collectors connected to the science and medicine worlds fight to outbid each other for the pieces, Heffel said.

Regardless, it’s a steep price for an artist who made less than $20 on his paintings in his lifetime.

“My research indicated that he made $13.77 in royalties from some of his paintings that were used on published Christmas cards. That was it,” Hume said.

For Banting, making art had nothing to do with making money. It was about escaping his hectic life in London, Ont., where he ran a bustling medical practice. He travelled to the Canadian Rockies, Spain, Russia and even the Arctic Circle, often alongside a Group of Seven artist.

On a trip to the North with Jackson, Banting wrote about the solace of escape.

“When we cleared the wharf I ripped off my white collar and threw it overboard — went to cabin and put on my old army breeches and grey shirt, leggings, boots and sweater — goodbye to civilization for two months at least,” he wrote in a journal.

The scientist once made a promise to himself. After his 50th birthday, he told a fellow artist, he would abandon science to become a full-time painter. He dreamed of disappearing into the woods with his brushes and colours. Maybe he would buy a canoe.

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But it would have to be after he turned 50. The Second World War was raging overseas, and Banting wanted to work with military research.

But in February 1941, a plane carrying Banting to England crashed into Musgrave Harbour, N.L. The scientist with the birthday wish, too busy saving lives to commit to his passion full-time, died instantly.

He was 49.