Harold Town

Remembering illustrious artist Harold Town
Broadcast Date: Oct. 24, 1986

He was an abstract painter, illustrator, printmaker, sculptor and writer. He rose to fame as a founding member of Painters Eleven, a group of avant-garde artists. And on December 27, 1990, the man who defined art with a rich and varied palette, Harold Town, died at the age of 66. In this clip, four years before his death, Town speaks about his rise to fame and his life as a Canadian icon.

Town enjoyed a meteoric life. He rode the fame train and his name was on everyone's lips in the Toronto art scene 40 years ago. It appears, in retrospect that Town's reputation was more likely a product of his flamboyant personality, then on the back of talent and skill.

I may be unduly hard on Town, but in some ways, he seemed to personify the weakness of the abstract age of art - where avante guarde characters spun bicycle wheels on canvases or painted soup cans and demanded enormous sums for their works.

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