Beaverbrook Gallery Wins!

Turner: Fountain of Indolence 1834

So the battle endeth at last! The Beaverbrook lot of descendents have returned home to England, after a 6 year legal fight to seize the paintings in the Beaverbrook Gallery and take them home with them. Not that they haven't been doing it anyway.
The family has had a sorry reptutation of conviently "borrowing pictures" and then forgetting to return them to the gallery.

It all came to a head with a 6 year legal fight over ownership. The descendents claimed that the works were "loaned" to the gallery. The gallery said, "no way", they were a legally bequeathed to the gallery as trustees by Lord Beaverbrook.

Please click here to see the previous story in this saga.

I suspect that it was a win-loss situation for the gallery. |The gallery got back what they were legally entitled to, and Lady Maxwell Aitken and family flew back to England, leaving behind them the Beaverbrook Gallery, to pay for the legal costs.

You can't win for losing it seems.

The story can be found by clicking here to be taken to The Art Newspaper.

Vic Atkinson's 'Cartouche'

Vic and I share a common interest in ancient societies. Vic has a developed a love for ancient Egyptian art and when you see this work, you can understand why.

The beauty of colour and design in his work, reveal a richness of artistic expression. Vic takes an artistic form which has been degraded by time and he gives back to us an insight into the beauty of art created by the ancient Egypticans.

Vic, blows away the dust of time and he gives this ancient society the kind of artistic respect they deserve. When you see such a work as this, its not hard to imagine great stone walls, temples, and public places as seen long ago in their fullest glory. Our perspective of these peoples is lifted out of the Sahara sands and given life.

When we see such works we can appreciate Vic's adventurous quest.

George Reid - one of Canada's Early Artists

Mortgaging the Homestead

"In 1890, George Reid was thirty. He had returned to Toronto after a year in Paris and had immediately begun work on a large and ambitious canvas, Mortgaging the Homestead. He submitted the picture as his diploma work for the Royal Canadian Academy, to which he was elected as a full member in 1891. Reid's painting, recounting a country family's misfortune, struck a powerful chord in a society which was so dependent on the land. It was a subject Reid could invest with the conviction of personal experience. Born and brought up on a farm in western Ontario, he had had to overcome considerable resistance from his father to pursue his artistic interests. At one point, the family was forced to mortgage the farm. To such people, a mortgage was a last resort, a serious blow not only because it meant yielding independence and control of one's destiny, but also because it carried the shame and stigma of failure.

"Ironically, what had been a low point in his family fortunes marked for Reid a major success in his career. Three years later, he painted in an even larger format a sequel, Foreclosure of the Mortgage. Widely exhibited across North America, this picture brought Reid highly favourable notices. (Regrettably, the painting was destroyed by fire in England in 1918. In 1935, Reid painted a second--and, one assumes, inferior--version from his original sketches, and this is now in the Government of Ontario collection.)

" Mortgaging the Homestead was typical for its time because of its choice of theme and its narrative presentation. In the emphasis Reid put on the painting of light he also showed himself responsive to the latest academic interests in Paris. The Salon of 1888, the year Reid went to Paris, was particularly noted for the emphasis that painters were giving to light effects. Yet unlike other Canadian artists who had gone to Paris (in particular William Brymner, Paul Peel, and Robert Harris), Reid did not fully adopt the French mode. Nor did his work indulge in the cloying sentamentality and heaping detail that characterized so much European painting of the time. His painting is spare in incident, concentrating on the strength of the characterization that he could bring to his figures.

"The origins of Reid's approach owes most to the years he had spent in Philadelphia studying with Thomas Eakins, one of the finest figure painters of the day. Reid took up Eakins' robust naturalism and his concern with describing individuals rather than types. Eakins looked directly to the people and circumstances of his time and place, an attitude that also marks Reid's best work.

"Reid invested a major commitment to the development of art in Canada through a long career as both painter and educator. When J. E .H. MacDonald wrote in the mid-1920s about the origins of an identifiably Canadian school of painting, he pointed to Reid as one of the most significant arists in its development. Reid taught from 1890 at the Central Ontario School of Art and Design, and he was president of the Ontario College of Art from 1912 to 1928. He became a great advocate of "public art" and undertook major decorative murals on historical themes at Toronto City Hall (1897-99) and the Royal Ontario Museum (1935-38). An extensive program of murals on historical themes at Queen's Park was not realized, but some of the subjects were later executed in murals at Jarvis Collegiate Institute in Toronto (1928-30). In 1944, shortly before his death, he donated to Ontario 459 paintings and works on paper, most of them for display and exhibition in schools across the province. Less than half the works are traceable today."

Source: From the history of Jarvis Collegiate.Toronto Board of Education, secondary school website. Please click here.

The End of the Group of Eleven

Art groups come and go. They are held together by the bond of common interest and they have their own lifetime.

Helen McLean, recently wrote an interesting review on Iris Nowell's 'The Wild Ones in Canadian Art'.

While I won't write a review on a review, I will mention a couple of things I found interesting.

The Group bonded together with an uproarious sense of iconoclism. Tom Hodgson, who was one of the members of the group, used to paint in a studio he called 'The Pit'.
Hogdson often painted in the nude, and visitors to his studio, were usually persuaded to abandon their clothing.

Helen wrote about the demise of the group:
"By 1957, the Painters Eleven had done what they set out to do, which was to elevate abstract art to the mainstream of Canadian art. To mark their disbanding, there was one last wild party in the Pit, an occasion marked by heavy drinking, plentiful weed, rope-climbing, fistfights and a fire."

Please click here to read the review:

Early CBC - AY Jackson Documentary, complete with film footage of Tom Thomson's, Toronto 'Shack'.

I've been on a bit of an AY run lately. His autobiograpy caught my interest and with that I was off to the races.

Some background to this CBC documetary. It was created in 1955, making it 55 years old. AY, was 72 years of age at the time.

My attention picked up when the film showed footage of the famous 'shack', where Tom Thomson, lived in Toronto.

Lawren Harris, in his essay 'The Story of the Group of Seven,' wrote:

"The studio building was built in 1914. MacDonald, Jackson and I had studios in it. We tried to induce Tom Thomson to join us. Thomson loved the north. The north country and painting were his life. He lived in town in the winter with the sole idea that he could go north as soon as the ice broke in the rivers and lakes. Tom did not want a studio in the building. He would not feel at home in it. There was a dilapidated old shack at the back of the property which was built in the days that part of Toronto was the town of Yorkville. We fixed it up, put down a new floor, made the roof watertight, built in a studio window, put in a stove and an electric light, Tom made himself a bunk, shelves and a table and an easel and lived in that place as he would a cabin in the north. It became Tom's shack and was his home until he died in 1917. It has been known as Tom's shack ever since."

While Lawren doesn't say it, AY Jackson in his autobiography says that Lawren who was wealthy, provided the money for the studio and property. So it's conceivable that he paid for the refitting of Tom's 'shack'.

The Shack was eventually moved to the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, On., and AY Jackson spent the latter years of his life in the shack as a resident artist.

Anyway...its yours to enjoy. Its a real period peace documentary complete with tinny music, orchestrated dialogues and a voice over that makes it sound like a world war 2 film.


Please click here.

Lawren Harris essay extracted from Joan Murray's, 'The Best of the Group of Seven,', Hurtig Publishers, Edmonton, pg.27. isbn:0-88830-265-7.

Ronald Bloore and the Group of Five

White Paintings Represent Freedom for the Viewer - Rob Bloore


Kenneth Lochhead, Art McKay, Ted Godwin, Doug Morton, Ronald Bloore were Regina based artists in the 1960's. They received national attention after their paintings were presented by the National Gallery of Canada.

The Regina Five were a group because of where they lived and because of the experimentation of their work, but not by adherence to a common program. Such a notion would have been unthinkable to Bloore who, for more than thirty years, has pursued a rigorous and personal direction. In his catalogue statement for the "Five Painters from Regina," he wrote: "I am not aware of any intention while painting with the exception of making a preconceived image function formally as a painting. By this I mean that the appearance of each work has been consciously determined in my mind before executing it, and the general concept is not significantly altered by the requirements of material limitations."

from the website of the late artist Ron Bloore. Please click here.

Doc Snider's House, Revisited

I received a letter the other day from one of our featured artists. And, for the sake of putting the record straight - this man is very, very good. I will respect his confidence and grant him anonymity.

Afer reading the critique on Doc Snider's House, he made some dynamite points.

Before presenting some of his thoughts, I want to say that people bring their own life experiences into critiquing. An academic or someone who has a passing appreciation of art may see something entirely different from what an artist sees. The artist's insights are wrought out of years of hard experience in picture construction.

That being said, the writer encourages viewers to take another long hard look at this painting. He says among other things, that "there are all sorts of confusing elements, roof lines for instance, tangents, and butts galore."...the house in the middle lists to the left".

Ok, so lets take another look at Doc Snider's House.

Look at the left roof corner of the centre house. Do you see how an errant tree branch seems to grow out of the angle where the roof and outside wall meet.

Now, run your eyes up the right wall. A tree trunk runs along the outside wall of the uupper floor line and is wedged uncomfortably into the corner where the wall meets the overhang.

Look now at the right tree. The tree trunk not just butts up against the wall but it runs up along its edge and this creates a visual discordinance.

Taking this one step further - take a long, critical look at the lines at the back of the centre building. Look carefully at the space between it and the building to the left. Can you intellectually understand what is happening here?
It appears to be a roof line, but it sort of fades into nothingness.

While this may seem like nit picking, most artists place a very high value on the solid picture construction. This picture has some very questionable composition problems not without which are fragmented and confusing visual pathways.

That being said, it is easy to understand how Fitzgerald was drifting into abstract art forms - but when the two art forms are blended - what is left? A poorly constructed realistic work or an abstract construction which relies heavily upon reality.

Lets look at it from another view. If the artist's prime focus is the ballet of the winter trees - then his choice of title, creates its own confusion. Does the title place pre-eminence on the Doc's House or the trees?

Perhaps its best that this blog entry end with the words of the artist who put me onto this analyis.

The concept that something of significance does not have to conform to the rules because these rules might curb true artistic expression is an intersting concept. How does it become something of significance if it does not use these rules as the basis of its formation. Curious thing is that I am not a compositional stickler and certainly not an expert. So if I see things that are haywire, a true authority could find lots more. But profound creations do not necessarily conform to rules, thats what sets them apart and marks them for greatness....Picasso? Very average work that is flawed really has nothing to recommend it, not even an overly enthusiastic academic critic can convince a knowing eye that mediocre is good if it does not transcend the mundane./blockquote>

The Official Line is...............

Oh my, what can I say?
You my dear readers,are beholding a work called "The One Hundred Foot Line", by American artist, Roxy Paine.

Just in case you think that the blog has 'gone south', let me draw you up to date on this.

The One Hundred Foot Line, sits prominantly in Ottawa, as a visual out of doors repesentation of the National Gallery of Canada.

The National Gallery Site, waxes beautifuly on the matter with the line: It extends above and beyond itself, this work presents an awe-inspiring confrontation between the natural and the “man-made.” No doubt!

If you check the NAG's site by clicking here, you will read Roxy's bio.

Roxy is from the state of Virginia and he calls New York City home.

Does this create any questions?

The best thing about this story is the title. In some ways it speaks very well for our Nation's capital where we have had twisted lines, and official lines, and all kinds of lines now for over a hundred years.

Come now - could we not have been fed another line?

Why was Emily Carr Not Invited to Join the Group of Seven?

I've been reading Joan Murray's 'The Best of the Group of Seven'. Joan is well grounded in her knowledge of the group. She has met and talked to Arthur Lismer and she has interviewed many family members and friends of the group. Joan is the Director of the Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery of Oshawa, On.

Joan challenged me from the get-go with her first paragraph:

Nearly Sixty years ago Emily Carr met the Group of Seven. Her reaction was two fold.On her meeting with Arthur Lismer, shortly after meeting F.H. Varley and A.Y.Jackson, she wrote in her journal. "I wonder if these men feel as I do that there is a common chord between us. "No", she replied to herself. "I don't believe they feel so toward a woman."

But - could there be another side to the story? AY Jackson writes in his autobiography:

"I too, had the weight to feel her displeasure. I spent a great deal of time once persuading a collector to buy one of her canvases. He eventually bought it, and all I got from Emily in the way of thanks was a letter complaining about having had to wait so long."

Was Emily unable to crack group membership because of her sex? There is good reason to believe that. But on the other hand, did the group members distance themselves from Emily because of her abrasive personality? That may also be the case. I guess we will never know the story since all the players are long gone.

Source 1:
The Best of the Group of Seven. Joan Murray. pg.7 1-8.
References:The Best of the Group of Seven. Joan Murray,Hurtig Publishers, Edmonton Ab. c.1984.
isbn 0-88830-265-7

A Painter's Country. Autobiography of AY Jackson. Clarke Irwin co. 1963. Toronto, On.

Paul Rockette Photograph

binoculars c1964
source: cbc website

Shocking Business: The Group of Eleven

One autumn day in 1953 abstract art landed with a thump, like a heavy, unexpected snowfall, on what used to be called Toronto the Good. Splay-footed pedestrians passing Simpson’s mammoth department store at Queen and Yonge Streets were the eyewitnesses. They were used to the home-furnishings window displays and the fur-clad mannequins, but something had gone mightily askew here. The window was full of weird paintings, possibly from one one of those new-fangled UFOs everyone was talking about.



This decidedly non-gallery setting was where seven young Canadians vented the fever of the affliction that had overtaken New York.

The instigator was William Ronald, who did the artwork for Simpson’s ads and handled the window dressing at the store. His biggest challenge until then had been trying to outdo the displays at rival retail behemoth Eaton’s.

Ronald’s bold stroke got enough attention for him and the other six live wires involved in the plot that they — joined by four others and calling themselves Painters Eleven — got an exhibition the following February at the Roberts Gallery further down Yonge.

The Group of Seven had quietly blazed new paths in the woods, and with their adherents pretty much painted “every damn tree in the country”, as another top Canadian artist, Graham Coughtry, put it. Painters Eleven — Alexandra Luke, Harold Town, Oscar Cahén, Kazuo Nakamura, Jack Bush, Hortense Gordon, Walter Yarwood, Ray Mead, Tom Hodgson, Jock Macdonald and William Ronald — were chattering ice cutters noisily opening the Northwest Passage.

Please click here to be taken to Paul Dorsey's article, in The Dali House.

After the Rain by Homer Watson

After the Rain painted in 1883 is a good example of Watson's art. Like most of his mature work, this painting is a piece of refined and careful craftsmanship showing careful attention to detail. This painting has a photographic-like quality. Watson's aim seemed to be to create a near exact image of the countryside, as one might today with a camera. In terms of colour, Watson made considerable use of greens and browns, creating a sedate feel to his work. The painting itself, like many of Watson's paintings, depicts a country scene in the vicinity of Doon, his home town. It is a picture of a farm after a rainfall. Looking at this painting, we can see the plowed field, note the fences in the middle background, and see that the trees in the field have been cleared to make way for farming

Please click here to read the entire article on the Mount Allison University website.

Weeding out the Collection

A friend and I were engaging in art talk over coffee. He told me how he refuses to let his less mature works survive the passing of time. Now lets face it. He was really saying, "After I am gone, I don't want my art to be judged on what I perceive as my poorer paintings." His words hit the mark for my collection could do with a good weeding out.

This is the thought that went through my mind as background to this page from the autobiography of AY Jackson.

AY, writes:
"While we were in St. Malo, a little circus tent arrives there. The performances took place in a small green tent, outside of which stood a covered wagon drawn by a mule. I made a sketch of the tent in the evening light. Some years later when I was cleaning out a lot of old paintings, I came across the circus tent and told my sister to put it with other rejected pieces in the furnace."

One day Robinson said to me, "Do you remember a sketch you did in St. Malo of a green circus tent? Do you still have it?" I told him that it had gone to the furnace some years before.

He was shocked. "Why, he said," "That was one of the finest things you ever painted."

Thereafter he would often refer to it, and in retrospect the sketch got better with every telling. "It was as good as a Morrice," he declared, and in time I came to believe that it was and that I had been very foolish to destroy it.
Source:
A Painter's Country - the autobiography of AY Jackson, pg.19. Clarke Irwin & Co, 1963. Toronto, On. Canada.

Gary Kennedy's Latest Work: Trapp Skiff

Gary Kennedy of Port de Grave Newfoundland, has recently completed the above painting which he has called Trap Skiff. Gary's realistic style of painting provides almost an archival record of life in his province. Gary works in oils, and this painting measures in at 21.5"x 57.5".

I would guess that this is an early morning scene. The colours are muted and grey and it gives his work an archival quality - a sense of timelessness. It could be today, or on the other hand, it may be a reminscence of outport life from long ago. Nostalgia finds a warm home in the hearts of most viewers. Gary's restricted palette take attention from the setting and the lack of distractive colours leads us to focus on movement and the activity of his subjects as they engage in their tasks. But even moreso, Gary reserves his darkest values for the apron and the body of the man on the right. This moves him onto the centre stage (take a look at his workmate and how he is lost in the surrounding lines and shapes and like tonalities of the surrounding boats) By doing this Gary gives his fisherman visual pre eminence. He is not just an integral part of the scene, but he becomes pivotally important. By making the man the centre of focus, we see man in control. But then again,his small place in the overall scheme of things, leaves me with the conclusion that his control is locked into the present moment. He's a pretty small force in the greater scheme of things.

When you see it in this light, you can see how Gary has touched base with the very heart of Newfoundland life. The present day viewer sees the loss of their outport society and its economy and it brings with it a whole dimension of thought, peculiar to the lives of Newfoundlanders.

You are invited to check out Gary's gallery by clicking here.

AY Jackson on Lawren Harris

I did not meet Lawren Harris in Toronto, so he came to Berlin (Kitchener) to meet me. He was I found, a young man, well educated, widely travelled and well to do; his grandfather had been one of the founders of the Massey Harris Company.

To Lawren Harris, art was almost a mission. He believed that a counry that ignored the arts, left no record of itself, worth preserving. He deplored our neglect of the artist in Canada, and believed that we, a young, vigorous people who had pioneered in so many ways should put the same spirit of adventure into our cultivation of the arts. With MacDonald, Lismer, Varley and others whose acquaintance he had recently made, he believed that art in Canada should assume a more aggressive role and he had exalted ideas about the place of the artist in the community. After the apathy of Montreal, it was exciting to meet such a man.



After looking back all these years, I can think of no one who has so consistently devoted himself to increasing the public's interest in the arts and upholding the ideals of the artists in Canada.

Source: Autobiography of AY Jackson, 1958. Clark Irwin & Co., Ltd. Toronto. pg. 24.

What Could be More Canadian then Hockey?

Imagine this...the NHL is about to embark into the land of fantasy Superheroes, and who better to do it then Stan Lee, the creator of Spiderman and the X men.
There will be One Superhero for every team.

Ok readers, here's your chance to produce your Canadian NHL Superhero pack.

Toronto Maple Laughter, Calgary Chuckrider,Edmonton Oil Can Harry, Kaptain Vancovuer Kanuckistan

Recalling the Land. An Exhibition of Watercolour Paintings of the Ontario Landscape by J. Anderson

Time: 2:19
Source: You Tube
Artist: J.Anderson

The New Raw - The Challenge of Today's Arctic Art

The New Christ by Jutai Toonoo, 2008.

I am caught in a time warp when I think of Inuit art. I see seals and hunters with spears and birds. But what is the new reality?

The West Baffin Art Cooperative has to deal with this on a daily basis for it seems that art galleries are of two minds in the south. Some more avant guarde galleries are willing to step out on a limb and to capture the new cultural realities of the north, but more often then not Galleries opt for traditional, nostalgic works.

Its time to take a good hard look at Arctic life. Dogsleds, and igloos are part of the fading Arctic past. If you go into any arctic community today you will find prefabricated homes, snowmobiles, and all terrain vehicles (quads). When I was in Saniquiluak in the Belcher Islands, I saw a wire running from the back of a small house and learned that this was the village radio station. Airplanes and ships from the south carry televisions sets, computers and southern appliances these northern villages and within 30 years time the culture of the north has been dramatically rewritten.

The question is. What is the new reality? As the traditional Inuit way of life slides slowly into the past, younger artists are becoming increasingly more attuned to these changes. Does the image of a polar bear swimmming among cola cans, helicopters carrying wealthy southern hunters and trucks carrying products from ships to the Northern Store, have a place in today's Inuit art? The answer would be yes. But can it find a market in a population where art buyers prefer traditional Inuit images?


Please click here, to be taken to a Radio Canada International Video, documentary which profiles this issue. Its about ten minutes long but it will forever change the way you see Inuit art.

Also, Eye on the Arctic: The New Raw. Please click here.

Sources: CBC Radio Oct. 8th, 2010 and Radio Canada International

Rolf Hicker Canoe on Lac Monroe, Quebec

Another beautiful and timely picture by Rolf Hicker. Rolf is a master of capturing the atmosphere of his surroundings.

Autumn has descended, and I have been spending time in the forest lately and searching for the 'right' picture to paint. This is what drew me to this autumn picture.

Rolf invites interested readers to click on the following links to see his fall and canoe related pictures.

Please click here to see his canoe gallery .
Please click here to view his fall gallery

Farewell to Mira Godard -Foremost Gallery Owner

Canadianart, online writes of the death of Mari Godard a foremost Canadian Gallery owner. Please click here if you wish to read the article.

The article sites several people with quotes about Mira, including this one by Chrisopher Pratt.

I had my first show with Mira Godard in Montreal in April 1970. Now, 40 years later, I have a show at the Mira Godard Gallery in Toronto. It is, by sad coincidence, the last show to have been planned and installed in her lifetime. The significance of that, the unforeseen honour, does not escape me. It has about it an asymmetrical balance, a precision that we both found satisfactory.

I met Mira in 1969. Over the past 40 years, Mira and I became friends. She visited my home and studio in Newfoundland frequently. Those visits were a mix of business and camaraderie. She changed and upgraded the understanding of “professional” in the visual arts in Canada. I, and many others, have been its beneficiary.