Artists’ Biographies in alphabetical order by last name.
Suezan Aikin
BORN: Montreal 1952
STUDIES:
Yoshida Woodblock Print Studio Tokyo, 84-85
Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Halifax, 74-75 BFA
Ecole du Musee des Beaux Arts, Montreal, 74
Ontario College of Art, Toronto, 71-73
Mt. Allison University, 69-72
SELECTED SOLO SHOWS:
25 Year Retrospective of Woodblock Prints traveled to three Public Galleries in Germany: Dornum Castle; Tollhousverein, Leer; Rastede Palace, Oldenberg 2000-2001 color catalog and reviews.
Private Exhibitions, Falmouth, Mass., July 1996; Montreal, November 1996; Gibson Island, Md., April 1999.
Gold Paintings and Woodblock Retrospective, traveling: Kabutoya Gallery, Tokyo; Genkan Gallery, Tokyo American Club; Blue Nile Gallery, Osaka; Kanda’s Gallery BOQ, Okinawa; May 1994 (color catalogue)
Edo Gallery, Boston, November 1992, Private Exhibitions, Chatham, Mass, July 1992, Toronto, Oct. 1991
New Paintings and Woodblocks Kabutoya Gallery, Tokyo, May 1991, and also in 1987.
Japanese Garden and Pavilion Foundation, Montreal, September 1990, Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University 1988
Zwickers Gallery, Halifax, NS, 1979; Gallery 78; Fredericton, November, 1983; Robertson Galleries, Ottawa, November, 1982
SELECTED CORPORATE & PRIVATE COLLECTIONS:
The Canada Council Art Bank; Hudson Bay Collection; Nickle Art Museum; Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Federal Business Development Bank; Nova Scotia Art Bank; Mt.Allison University; Royal Bank of Canada; Bank of America; Manufacturer’s Life Insurance Co.; Atlantic Lotto Corp.; Bank of Montreal; Mount Saint Vincent University; Dofasco Innocan Inc.; Mirabaud Canada; Prince Takamadonomiya Norihito; Embassy of Canada, Tokyo; Thomas More Institute, Montreal; Tokai Bank of Canada; etc.
Elizabeth Cann
Born Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, 1901
Died Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, 1977
Elizabeth Lovitt Cann started her academic studies in a private school in Montreal and at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. In 1921 she moved to New York, where she studied at the School of Applied Design for Women. From 1922 to 1936 she traveled and lived in France, England, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Algiers. During those years she studied at the Harvey Proctor School in England, at the Academie Julien, the Atelier chez Bileul and the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris. Painter in a realistic style, Cann was best known as a portraitist. Her portraits of women in wartime are recognized for showing the domestic routine and loneliness during the war. She also did landscape, still life painting and drawing in conté and pencil on lithographic plates. After 1923, Elizabeth Cann had several exhibitions in Canada and abroad. In 1927 the Johnson Art Galleries mounted her first solo exhibition in Montreal. Her work was accepted at the Spring Salon in Paris (1929) and one of her paintings was accepted at the Royal Canadian Academy exhibition in Toronto in 1930. In 1936 she returned to Yarmouth, where she continued to submit to the annual Royal Canadian Academy and Art Association of Montreal exhibitions.
Frank E Cavell (1909-80)
Frank E. Cavell was born in 1909 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He attained his ACOA in Drawing and Painting from the Ontario College of Art in 1936. He lived in Ontario in the 1940’s and painted landscapes, still life and seascapes.
Margaret Allison Chipman 1917 – 2000
Margaret Chipman, a native of Truro, Nova Scotia, lived in Yarmouth from 1948 on. She studied drawing and oil painting with Mabel K. Day, Elizabeth Cann, Roy Mandell and Theya Whitten, watercolour with Alice Reed, and etching with Cecil Day. She attended summer schools at Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick with Lauren Harris Jr. and Jacques de Tannancour c.1960; The School of Community Arts, Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia with Donald C. MacKay and Molly MacKay; Silver Glen Art Workshops, Antigonish, Nova Scotia with David Hatfield, 1979 as well as many weekend art workshops. She studied stained glass with artists from the Glass Garden Studio, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Her group exhibitions include The Yarmouth Art Society Regular Exhibitions; Kermesse for the IWK annual exhibitions; At the Sign of the Whale Gallery 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998; Visual Arts Nova Scotia 1991; 7 Local Artists, National Exhibition Centre, Firefighters Museum of Nova Scotia, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia; The Atlantic Winter Fair 1976, 1978; The Centennial Exhibition of Paintings by Nova Scotia Artists (touring) 1967; The Maritime Art Association 1960-61, 1964-65, 1965-66, 1966, 1976-77 (touring) 1977 (Purchase Award); The Nova Scotia Society of Artists; The Nova Scotia Department of Education Traveling Shows 1960, 1961.
Solo Exhibitions At the Sign of the Whale Gallery, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia include May 1999 – with Bill Crowell; June 1993 – with Helen Weld and Denise Comeau; Fall 1988. May 1993 – “Homecoming” presented by the Truro Art Society, Truro, Nova Scotia.
Collections: Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, Sackville, N.B.
William Wilson Cowell
William Wilson Cowell (1848 – 1910) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of William Cowell and well-known, popular Chicago actress, Anna Cruise Cowell. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with marine painters, Edward Moran and John Faulkner. He painted in New York State, notably the Adirondack Mountains and the Hudson River, Newport and the Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, the rocky coasts of Hahant and Marblehead, Massachusetts and the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia. Circa 1895, Cowell moved to Chicago, Illinois, but spent his summers in Nova Scotia. He adopted a primarily luminist manner, a style of painting that emphasizes careful attention to the effects of direct and reflected light within a painting. His watercolours – which appear to be predominantly his medium of choice while painting in Nova Scotia – clearly demonstrate this style. While in Nova Scotia he taught art privately in Yarmouth. In 1905 he married Florence M. Cress of Round Hill, Annapolis County. At the time of his marriage he was a widower. On Sept. 7, 1910 he died at Round Hill, N.S. and was buried in Pennsylvania.
Cowell was a member of the Brooklyn Art Association and the National Academy of Design, where he also exhibited. He also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1876 to 1900 and the Art Institute of Chicago.
(Some material for this is based on the January 15, 2008 article in The Vanguard “W. W. Cowell art on exhibit at Yarmouth Museum”)
Bill Curry
Bill Curry, a Conservation Photographer, specializes in Outdoor, Nature and Wildlife Photography, capturing images of natural surroundings and displaying the images using a technique originated by Ansel Adams called the Zone System of photography. This system encourages the photographer to visualize the final image before being captured, and thus the photographer’s use of light and dark is always foremost in the mind when composing an image. Bill’s photographs display this love of contrast, and this accounts for the texture viewers often cite as evident in his images.
Bill learned photography very early, first in formal fine arts and photography training in Junior and Senior High School, then in a Bachelor of Arts at Acadia University and he is a graduate of the 3 year Professional Photography program of the New York Institute of Photography.
Bill was an early adopter of digital technology, alongside film, in 1998. He currently uses mostly digital cameras, but still produces some fine art prints from film negatives. Bill prides himself on not re-touching or heavily altering his images, instead electing to remain faithful to the Zone System and visualizing the shot in advance, making post shot alterations less necessary.
Mary Landry Dowler
July 20, 1915 – June 13, 2019
Mary Landry Dowler was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and died in Vancouver, British Columbia. She attended the Nova Scotia College of Fine Art from 1933 to 1937 where she received the President’s Prize at graduation. In 1938 she studied at the National Academy of Art & Design in New York City. Returning to Yarmouth she had a studio above the old Bank of Montreal and taught art during World War II. Subsequently she moved to western Canada with her husband finally settling in Vancouver. While raising their family of four boys she designed her own series of cards for Coutts Hallmark which was distributed across North America. She is best known for her florals painted in gouache on a black background.
PIERRE FERRON
Pierre Ferron was born in Joliette, Quebec, Canada, in 1943. Ferron’s artistic career began when he attended the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, U.S.A. He continued his studies at l’École des Beaux-Arts in Montreal where he obtained his B.F.A. in 1967. While teaching Photography at the CEGEP du Vieux Montreal he took part time studies at L’École Supérieure des Arts et Metiers de Montreal to become a goldsmith.
Ferron spent some of his childhood in Nova Scotia and moved there with his wife in 1975. A practicing artist for 45 years, Ferron’s work was mainly inspired by Maritime land and seascapes. His body of work includes oil paintings, acrylics, and watercolours, as well as lithography and etching which he pursued under the tutelage of Cecil Day. He taught himself Japanese Sumi-e brush work (a life-long interest of his), doing his own research and experimenting with the medium. In 2004 he learned further brush stroke techniques with a Master painter in Korea.
Ferron’s work hangs in private collections in England, Australia, the United States, Japan, Korea, and Canada. His work has been included in art shows at The Albert White Gallery in Toronto (1984 – “10 Nova Scotia Artists”), Forest Art Gallery in Yarmouth, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Zwicker’s Gallery in Halifax, At the Sign of the Whale Gallery in Yarmouth, and The Yarmouth Arts Regional Centre, ART’s PLACE in Annapolis Royal, Lunenburg Art Gallery, Yarmouth County Museum, Musée Acadien in West Pubnico, Galerie Pere Léger Comeau at L’Université Sainte-Anne in Clare and he participated in the Arts/Sales/Rentals of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax.
Pierre was a member of Visual Arts Nova Scotia, the Yarmouth Arts Society, and l’Association Acadienne des Artistes de la Nouvelle-Ecosse. He served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia from 1995 to 1998.
He died in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in 2018.
Nora Gross
Nora Gross works with watercolours. She finds her inspiration from light and how it affects the landscape, a floral bouquet, or whatever catches her eye. Originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Gross remembers always drawing and doing other artwork as a child, and later took classes and worked with oil paints. When she was moving in 1976, her moving van containing all her oil paints was stolen. Since it was three years before she could afford to purchase the oil paints again, she borrowed a watercolour book and taught herself that medium and loved the effects she could achieve.
Gross attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and studied with Master Watercolour Painters across Canada.
Her solo shows include Truro Art Society, Truro, N.S. 2006 and 1997; Dartmouth Heritage Museum, Dartmouth, N.S. 1991 and 1983; National Exhibition Centre, Fredericton, N.B. 1982; The New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, N.B. 1982
She has participated in group shows in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Nora Gross has demonstrated the watercolour medium for art stores and art paint manufacturers. She has been requested to act as a juror for many of the local art shows in the Maritime Provinces and is also invited to be a guest instructor for art groups throughout the Maritime Provinces. As an illustrator, she has done the pictures for “Louisa’s Diary” for the Nova Scotia Museum in 1989, and that has been incorporated into the Social Studies book for elementary school students in Nova Scotia. Parks Canada has commissioned paintings for the signs on the Balsam Hollows Trail in Green Gables Park in PEI.
Gross does a lot of photography and uses the photos as a basis for her painting. Though not a photo realist, she likes to keep it realistic with perhaps some abstraction of facts. Her paintings have lots of bright colours, and she feels they are descriptive of life as it is. She also started working with acrylic as she feels there is always something new to learn. Nora was elected to the CSPWC (Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour) in 2005 and retired in 2020 from the Directorship of the Atlantic Region.
Jeannie Edmonds Hancock
Jeannie Edmonds Hancock was born in Halifax in 1946. She attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the Montreal Museum of Fine Art School where she studied under Arthur Lismer, G. Tondino, and Moe Reinblatt. Jeannie was appointed the official artist for the Canada Games held in Halifax in 1968. She became a well-known local artist noted for her large-scale landscapes and studies of sports figures, which were executed in oil on board panels covered in fibreglass.
In 1977 Hancock won the Maritime Art Association Purchase Award. In 1978 she was one of 20 Canadian artists chosen by the Canadian Conference of Bishops to illustrate the first Roman Catholic prayer book printed in Canada. In 1987 Hancock was one of 12 Canadian artists represented in the CBC Canada Day special “Painting in Canada”. She was professor of Creative Art at Acadia University in 1980 and 1981. Her work has been exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Acadia University, St. Mary’s University and Mount St. Vincent University. She has illustrated many books and publications as well as given many workshops in art over the years. Her work is in the collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the Province of Nova Scotia. In recent years, Hancock has been living in the Annapolis Valley, working in oils and generally in a smaller format than when she was younger.
Herbert Hatt
Herbert Hatt (1894 – 1988) was born on Tancook Island, Nova Scotia and died in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. He was designated an honorary member of Nova Scotia Designer Craftsmen for his wood turning. He was one of 50 top craftspeople from across Canada featured in the Massey Foundation’s book The Craftsman’s Way, published in 1981. In 1986 an exhibition of his work was held at The Sign of the Whale Gallery in Yarmouth. His fine wood turnings can be found in public and private collections.
Herbert Hatt was also a painter, a furniture maker, a silversmith, a jeweler, a rug maker, a weaver and an award winning bee keeper. He had a long career in the ministry. At age 93 his autobiography Alive to All True Values was published by Lancelot Press (now available through Doull Books). From his book Herbert writes “My turnings must be usable and at the same time cherishable. The possessor must derive pleasure from the beauty of the object. That definitely bequeaths real meaning to my work at the lathe.”
JoAnn Horton
JoAnn Landry Horton was a native of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. She attended Mount Saint Vincent Academy in Halifax and later St. Francis Xavier College. She worked in oils and acrylics but has predominantly worked in watercolours.
JoAnn Landry Horton studied painting under several notable artists including Claude Roussell, Christopher Pratt, David Silverburg and Molly Lamb Bobak. Her work has been exhibited in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island and has been purchased by the New Brunswick Art Bank, The University of New Brunswick, Central and Nova Scotia Trust, Rothmans Pall Mall Limited and Esso Resources Limited. She exhibited a number of times with her photographer son, Fred Horton. The exhibition “Generations” held at the Yarmouth County Museum in January and February, 2011 dealt with the art work of JoAnne, her sister Mary Landry Dowler, her son Fred and her great aunt Sister Agnes Berchmans (born Julia Alma Landry).
In 2003 JoAnn illustrated Phyllis McKinley’s book of poetry Invitation. She taught watercolour workshops in Yarmouth and in the Moncton, New Brunswick area.
For JoAnn the solitude and the intense concentration required while at work made painting a form of meditation. Her paintings evoke the mystery and holiness she witnessed while attentively beholding the world.
Herzl Kashetsky
From Wikipedia
Herzl Kashetsky LL.D. (born 1950) is a realist painter, known for his commemorative work in paintings dedicated to victims of the Holocaust. The main body of his art has been figurative, and embedded in the representational.
Born in 1950 in Saint John, New Brunswick, Kashetsky was inspired to draw and paint as a child, and encouraged by his artist older brother, Joseph (1941-1974). He received his B.F.A. from Concordia University, Montréal, Québec (1972), then had his first professional show, with Joseph, in 1972 at the University of New Brunswick Art Centre in Fredericton NB. In 1977, he undertook independent study in Rome and Florence.
In the late 1970s, he painted still-life subjects with a subtle commentary, as in his painting Innocence (1977, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa), reproduced in Joan Murray`s book Confessions of a Curator (1996). In the 1980s, he was drawn to scenes of Saint John like a door in the city market or views of the city, but by 1989, he was exploring the theme of Creation, about the seven days of Creation. In 1991, the Art Gallery of Hamilton held a significant show of his still life watercolour paintings which recalled the ‘vanitas’ tradition, Herzl Kashetsky: Civilization and the Beast. Beginning in 1992, he created the series Beach Stones, shown at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in 1992, which he is still working on to the present day. This series is considered to be some of his most meticulous work.
After a trip in the early 1990s to Poland and visits to holocaust sites, he was inspired to create his elegiac 1996 series, A Prayer for the Dead which was shown in a circulating exhibition by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in 1997, curated by Tom Smart, who described it in the catalogue as a visual prayer. A Prayer for the Dead, for which he used documentary photographs as a source, was not only Kashetsky`s way of paying respect to the dead, but his way of commemorating the tragedy of the death of six million people in the concentration camps.
In 2011, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery held Glitter and Gloom: the sketchbooks of Herzl Kashetsky, curated by Terry Graff. In 2012, Herzl Kashetsky – A Thousand Words are Worth a Picture was shown at the Saint John Arts Centre in which a multitude of words composed ink drawings. Kashetsky in 2021 is working on a 50th anniversary exhibit of his first professional show at the University of New Brunswick Art Centre which will be shown at Gallery 78 in Fredericton NB in 2022. Kashetsky wrote in a sketchbook about his work:
I want to draw or paint something that is worth looking at more than once. I want it to be connected to something meaningful.
Kashetsky is represented in the following public collections, among others: The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle; the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton; the University of New Brunswick Art Centre; the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, the New Brunswick Museum, Saint John; and the Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown.
Commissions: Kashetsky has received numerous commissions for portraits such as his painting of The Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick (NB) (1997), his Chancellor of Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia (2016), and his Vice-President, University of New Brunswick, Saint John NB (2018) as well as his Fundy Beach Stones Triptych for Irving Oil Ltd. Saint John NB (7.5×15 ft.) (2019).
In 1986, he was the subject of a CBC documentary, Portraits of the Maritimes: Herzl Kashetsky. From 2013-2014, he served on the jury for the National Holocaust Monument Ottawa (opened 2017).
Honours
Honorary doctorate from the University of New Brunswick (1992)
Commemorative medal for outstanding artistic contribution to the community, for Canada’s 125th anniversary of Confederation (1992)
New Brunswick Red Cross Humanitarian Award (1997)
Best picture award at the 53rd annual exhibition of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (1997)
Strathbutler Award for Excellence in Visual Arts from the Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation (2011)
Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012)
Bibliography
- A prayer for the dead / Herzl Kashetsky. Fredericton, N.B.: Goose Lane Editions. 1997. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
- Glitter and Gloom: the sketchbooks of Herzl Kashetsky. Fredericton, N.B.: Beaverbrook Art Gallery. 2011. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
Maurice LeBlanc
1924 – 2021
Born in West Pubnico, Maurice LeBlanc was the son of the late J.-Emile and Jeannette d’Entremont. After primary education at the local school he moved to the Université Sainte-Anne where he earned a B.A. degree with distinction in 1944. He followed this with theological studies in Québec with the Order of Eudiste Fathers and was ordained a priest in 1949. From 1956 to 1958 he studied art history in Rome where he was awarded a Master’s Degree. He worked as a teacher for 42 years, with 25 years at the College of Bathurst, N.B. and 17 at the Université Sainte-Anne.
Art always interested Maurice LeBlanc and he delighted in drawing from a very young age. His first serious studies in fine art began in the 1970’s in the College of Bathurst Fine Arts Department. While there he studied watercolour, serigraphy, sculpture and pottery. After coming to Church Point in 1974 he became a member of the Clare Arts Council and continued his studies with several painting workshops. He also studied with well-known painters from the Canadian Watercolour Society. His drawing and painting developed further with a six week course in Madrid in 1985.
Maurice LeBlanc was kept busy in 1998 with three separate solo shows; one at the YARC in Yarmouth, one at the MacDonald Museum in Middleton and another at St. Francis-Xavier University in Antigonish. He previously had two solo exhibitions in Yarmouth and solo shows at the Pubnico Library, in Church Point and in Lyster, Québec. He also exhibited in Halifax, Antigonish, Buctouche, N.B. and Windsor, Ontario. His principal teachers were Jean-Paul Ladouceur, Nicole Forman, Alice Reed, Jan Cullen, Elaine MacEachern and Jeannie Hancock.
Wallace R. MacAskill
(1893-1956)
Wallace Robinson MacAskill was born in 1887 at St. Peters, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. He was the third son of Angus and Mary MacAskill. He graduated from the Wade School of Photography in New York in 1907 and opened photographic studios in St. Peters and then Glace Bay before moving to Halifax in 1915. In 1926, MacAskill married Elva Abriel, a fellow photographer. The famous Bluenose stamp printed in 1929 was based on his photograph, and he became internationally known as a marine photographer. MacAskill published two books, Out of Halifax (1937) and Lure of the Sea (1951). MacAskill was also the recipient of many awards, including the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron’s Prince of Wales Cup (1932-1934, 1938), Thunderbird Crest Award for marine photography, and the fellowship from the Photographers Society of America. MacAskill died on 25 January 1956. «
Samson Nastapoka
Settlement: Port Harrison / Inukjuak
(1931) — E9-1712
Exhibitions:
A Taste of Arctic Quebec, Marion Scott Gallery
Arctic Forms – Inuit Sculpture, Arctic Inuit Art Gallery
Arctic Wildlife: The Art of the Inuit, Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal
Art/Inuit/Art: The Rothmans Permanent Collection of Eskimo Sculpture, Rothmans of Pall Mall Canada Ltd.
Eskimo Carvings and Prints from the Collection of York University, Art Gallery of York University
Granville Island Canadian Inuit Sculpture Exhibition (first exhibition), Vancouver Inuit Art Society
Hudson’s Bay Company Collection of Inuit Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery
Inuit Art: A Selection of Inuit Art from the Collection of the National Museum of Man, Ottawa, and the Rothmans Permanent Collection of Inuit Sculpture, Canada, National Museum of Man, Ottawa and Rothmans of Pall Mall Canada Ltd.
La deesse inuite de la mer/The Inuit Sea Goddess, Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal
Les Eskimos/De Eskimo’s, Studio 44 – Passage 44
Miniature Show, The Guild Shop
Port Harrison/Inoucdjouac, Winnipeg Art Gallery
Rothmans’ Collection of Inuit Sculpture, Kitchener – Waterloo Art Gallery
Sculpture in Miniature, Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec
The Inuit Sea Goddess, Surrey Art Gallery, (organized to complement the Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal exhibit of the same name)
We Lived by Animals/Nous Vivions des Animaux, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in cooperation with the Department of External Affairs
Winnipeg Collects: Inuit Art from Private Collections, Winnipeg Art Gallery
Public Collections:
Art Gallery of York University, Downsview
Avataq Cultural Institute, Montreal
Glenbow Museum, Calgary
Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon
Musee de la civilization, Quebec City
Rothmans Permanent Collection of Eskimo Sculpture, Toronto
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg
John Neville
John Neville was born in 1952 in Halls Harbour, Nova Scotia. While completing his B.F.A. at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, he studied at the Centre De Gravure Contemporaries, Geneva, Switzerland. John is both a printmaker and painter who has exhibited widely in the Maritime Provinces, the Eastern Seaboard, and Scotland. His work is in Public Collections in Canada, Scotland and Switzerland. As a result of his prominence in the Nova Scotian arts community, he is an Honourary Life Member of Visual Arts Nova Scotia.
Frederick Nicholas
Frederick Joseph George Nicholas (1891-1980) was born in England. He came to Canada as a young man just before the First World War and studied painting at the School of Applied Art, Battle Creek, Michigan. He also studied at the Illustration Course Press School of Art, London and took summer classes at Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick. He was first president of the Amherst Art Association, Amherst, Nova Scotia. He exhibited with the Nova Scotia Society of Artists from 1942 through 1972 and with the Maritime Art Association. Watercolours were his primary medium. Many of his paintings are scenes in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. He also liked sketching on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick.
Graham Norwell
1901 -1967 OSA
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1901, Graham Noble Norwell emigrated to Canada in 1914 with his family, settling in Kingston, Ontario after a short initial stay in Montreal. In 1920, Norwell studied under Arthur Lismer, George Reid, J.W. Beatty and Robert Holmes at the Ontario College of Art before traveling overseas to London and Paris to continue his art studies before returning to Canada and setting in Ottawa.
Working in oil and watercolour, the artist is best known for his depictions of Laurentian winter landscapes often including rural villages and cottages.
The artist exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1921-1943 and the Art Association of Montreal in 1922-1943. His works are included in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada.
Eddie Omnik
Eddie Omnik was born in 1950 in Point Hope, Alaska. He is a part of the long tradition of carving among Inuit Pac people. Eddie’s interest in carving began at the age of twelve while watching his father, Panneeluke Omnik, who was a carver of ivory, bone and soapstone. What began as a way to earn extra money as a child has brought Eddie international attention. His style was influenced first by his father and later by well-known artists to help guide his natural talent. Eddie said, “I am grateful to these talented men who taught me and inspired me to maintain my Native culture and the art of my people.” With the strong concept of expressing the natural richness of his people, Eddie continued to grow and developed his talent as an Inuit carver and designer. Edie died in 2008.
Biography Courtesy of Hill’s Native Art
Hal Ross Perrigard, ARCA
Hal Ross Perrigard was born in Montreal in 1891, and showed an early talent for art. He studied under Canadian masters Maurice Cullen and William Brymner. He began to exhibit his oil paintings in his early 20s, including with the Art Association of Montreal and with the Royal Canadian Academy.
Perrigard was a member of the Beaver Hall Group, which was a Montreal-based group of artists who were active at the same time as the Group of Seven. Although not as well known as the Group of Seven, there’s been increased attention given to the importance of the Beaver Hall Group in recent years. The modernist Beaver Hall Group had a strong representation by women artists including Anne Savage, Mabel May and Nora Collyer as well as painters A.Y. Jackson, Edwin Newgate and Randolph Stanley Hewton.
Using a fluid and loose style, Hal Ross Perrigard painted numerous brightly-coloured landscapes and streetscapes of Quebec, many of which he filled with everyday people going about their lives. The National Gallery of Canada purchased his painting titled Lalage in 1923. Hal Ross Perrigard was elected as an Associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy (ARCA) in 1924.
The artist created advertising posters and murals for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and one of his murals was displayed at the Canadian pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. He also created a number of recruitment posters for the Canadian army during the Second World War. He split his time between his hometown of Montreal and Rockport, Massachusetts, where he had a studio. He was an active member of several art groups in Quebec and Massachusetts.
He died in Montreal in 1960.
John Willard Raught
(From Wikipedia) John Willard Raught (1857-1931) was an American painter; known primarily for his landscapes in the Impressionistic style.
He initially worked as a telegraph operator in Scranton to support his education. At the age of twenty-four, he moved to New York City to enroll at the National Academy of Design. His first exhibit was at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1885.
Upon completing his studies there, he went to Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre. He would remain in Europe for seven years, spending some time at the artists’ colony in Pont-Aven and exhibiting at the Salon.
When he returned, he opened a studio in New York and lived there for several years before going back to Dunmore. There, he painted portraits and landscapes, in the hills of North Eastern Pennsylvania. He also created industrial scenes related to the coal industry. He exhibited his landscapes frequently at the National Academy and the Boston Art Club. He was also a member of the Salmagundi Club, a group that included some of the most prominent painters of that time.
His works have been displayed in the Clinton Library. The largest collection of his works is at the Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA.
Kelsey Raymond (1926 – 2000)
A popular Nova Scotia painter, Kelsey Ogden Raymond was born in New York City, and died in Digby, Nova Scotia, near Smith’s Cove, Nova Scotia where he had lived since the 1950s.
Raymond’s primary medium was oil paint applied with a palette knife. His subjects included coastal scenes, landscapes, historic buildings, portraits and figures. His styles were Impressionism* and Realism*.
Quote: “Thickly painted by use of a palette-knife, Kelsey Raymond’s interpretations never become sentimental or ‘touristy’ in appeal. Lobster-pots, nets and wharf-litter have consciously been set aside by the artist in favor of the fundamental qualities of movement, mass and form. Rarely, if ever, have I seen rocky landscapes and raging seas painted with more characteristic strength and artistic honesty.”
His education included studies at the Horton Academy, Wolfville, Nova Scotia (before World War II); Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia (briefly, after serving in World War II), the National Academy of Design*, New York City (one year scholarship, c.1946); with Jerry Farnsworth (c.1946); at the Art Students League of New York*, New York City (c.1946), under Edwin Dickinson, Robert Beverly Hale, Julian Edwin Levi and Kenneth Hayes Miller; and at the Mount Allison School of Fine and Applied Arts, Sackville, N.B. (Sept.1950-March 1952), under Alex Colville and Lawren Phillips Harris.
For many years Raymond sold his paintings from the “Cabin” in the Village of Smith’s Cove. His paintings were also the subject of a solo exhibition at Ars Classica Gallery, Montreal in 1960.
In the summer of 1998, Raymond was the subject of a solo exhibition titled “Structures” at the Admiral Digby Museum, Digby, Nova Scotia and the exhibition titled “Boats” in the summer of 2015.
William B. Ritchie
Art is a disease, you drive yourself mad doing it. Why? I don’t know, but there is a great joy in being an artist, though it’s a struggle to get the work done, a great struggle
– William Ritchie, 1996
From ‘Art As Life: A New Portrait of Bill Ritchie,’ by Philip Hicks. Arts Atlantic 55, Spring/Summer, 1996, p.27.
William Ritchie was born in Windsor, Ontario, in 1954. After attending several art colleges in Southern Ontario, Ritchie moved to Halifax, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1976. That same year, he travelled to Nain, Labrador, to work for Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Artist-in-the-Community program.
While there, Ritchie met fellow artist Gilbert Hay. The two opened a community craft centre in Nain, which catered to the tourist and collector market. They also influenced each other’s art. Ritchie taught Hay lithography and silkscreen printing techniques, and Hay taught Ritchie about Inuit mythology and survival tactics in the Labrador wilderness. Together, they created a series of lithographs illustrating various Inuit legends, which the Memorial University Art Gallery (now The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery) organized into the joint exhibition Labrador Inuit Mythology Series in 1982.
After his six-year residency in Nain, Ritchie moved to Newfoundland to work at St. Michael’s Printshop, located on the Avalon Peninsula’s Southern Shore. He lived there for several years in an isolated cabin with no running water and with electricity provided only by a small generator.
Since 1988, he has also been working for about three or five months every year at Cape Dorset’s Kinngait Studios, an internationally renowned printmaking centre founded by the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative in 1959. In 1997, he also opened Caplin Cove Press, a small fine art print shop in the community of St. Michael’s, on Newfoundland’s Southern Shore.
In addition to his printmaking, Ritchie also works in watercolour, acrylic paint, film, and digital media. His earlier work tended to be monochromatic, but he later expanded his colour palette. Ritchie’s art draws heavily upon his interest in natural history, the northern wilderness, and Inuit mythology. In the lithograph Labrador Inuit Mythology Series: Trout 4.20, for example, a fish has human faces transcribed into its gill. This alludes to the interconnectedness and interdependence of all natural things, and to the stories of metamorphosis that recur in Inuit mythology.
In addition to The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery’s Permanent Collection, Ritchie’s work is part of private and public collections, including the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and The Canada Council Art Bank.
Clive Roberts (1919 – 2010)
Clive Roberts was born in Argyle, Nova Scotia and lived in Fredericton, New Brunswick for most of his adult life. He studied art at Mount Allison University under Lawren Harris Jr. and Alex Colville, graduating in 1951 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree and in 1969 with a Bachelor of Education.
In 1952 Mr. Roberts was engaged to run an art program for elementary schools in Fredericton, New Brunswick and stayed to see programs developed at the Junior High and High School levels. When New Brunswick schools were consolidated into districts he became Art Co-ordinator for Districts 26 and 27. In 1981 he retired from his position to devote more time to painting, his favorite medium being watercolour.
Mr. Roberts received the Crowell Ecclesiastical Award for design of a church tapestry for the Brunswick Street Baptist Church, Fredericton in 1989 on the occasion of its 175th anniversary.
His work is represented in the Canada Council Art Bank, in the Province of New Brunswick Permanent Collection, in the collection of the University of New Brunswick, in the collection of the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital, and in private and corporate collections throughout Canada and abroad.
Mr. Roberts exhibited in group shows in Fredericton and Moncton, New Brunswick, including the New Brunswick Bi-centennial Exhibit and the Marion McCain Juried Exhibitions (1987, 1989, 1991) at the Beaverbrook Gallery, and the 1989 Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour in Toronto. He had solo exhibitions at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton and At the Sign of the Whale Gallery in 1987, 1992, 2004 and in 2009.
Georges Rouault
Written by Roy Donald McMullen
Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Georges Rouault, (born May 27, 1871, Paris, France—died February 13, 1958, Paris), French painter, printmaker, ceramicist, and maker of stained glass who, drawing inspiration from French medieval masters, united religious and secular traditions divorced since the Renaissance.
Rouault was born in a cellar in Paris during a bombardment of the city by the forces opposed to the Commune. His father was a cabinetmaker. A grandfather took an interest in art and owned a collection of Honoré Daumier’s lithographs; Rouault said later that he “went first to school with Daumier.” In 1885 he enrolled in an evening course at the Paris École des Arts Décoratifs. From 1885 to 1890 he was apprenticed in a glazier’s workshop; his mature style as a painter was undoubtedly influenced by his work on the restoration of medieval stained-glass windows, including those of Chartres cathedral. In 1891 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts, where he soon became one of the favourite pupils of the Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, in a class that also included the young Henri Matisse and Albert Marquet. After the death of Moreau in 1898, a small Paris museum was created for his pictures, and Rouault became the curator.
Rouault’s early style was academic. But around 1898 he went through a psychological crisis, and, subsequently, partly under the influence of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne, he evolved in a direction that made him, by the 1905 Paris Salon d’Automne, a fellow traveller of the Fauves (Wild Beasts), who favoured the arbitrary use of strong colour. Until the beginning of World War I, his most effective medium was watercolour or oil on paper, with dominant blues, dramatic lighting, emphatic forms, and an expressive scribble.
Rouault’s artistic evolution was accompanied by a religious one, for he had become, about 1895, an ardent Roman Catholic. He became a friend of the Catholic intellectuals Joris-Karl Huysmans and Léon Bloy. Through another friend, a deputy public prosecutor, he began to frequent, as had Daumier, the Paris law courts, where he had a close view of humanity apparently fallen from the grace of God. His favourite subjects became prostitutes, tragic clowns, and pitiless judges.
Without completely abandoning watercolour, after 1914 Rouault turned more and more toward the oil medium. His paint layers became thick, rich, and sensuous, his forms simplified and monumental, and his colours and heavy black lines reminiscent of stained-glass windows. His subject matter became more specifically religious, with a greater emphasis on the possibility of redemption than he had put into his pre-1914 work. In the 1930s he produced a particularly splendid series of paintings on the Passion of Christ; typical examples are Christ Mocked by Soldiers, The Holy Face, and Christ and the High Priest. During these years he got into the habit of reworking his earlier pictures; The Old King, for instance, is dated 1916–36.
Between World Wars I and II, at the instigation of the Paris art dealer Ambroise Vollard, Rouault devoted much time to engravings, illustrating Les Réincarnations du Père Ubu by Vollard, Le Cirque de l’étoile filante by Rouault himself, Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire, and Miserere (his masterpiece in the genre), with captions by Rouault. Some of this work was left unfinished for a time and published later. In 1929 he designed the sets and costumes for a production by Serge Diaghilev of Sergey Prokofiev’s ballet The Prodigal Son. In 1937 he also did the cartoons for a series of tapestries.
During and after World War II, he painted an impressive collection of clowns, most of them virtual self-portraits. He also executed some still lifes with flowers; these are exceptional, for three-quarters of his lifetime output is devoted to the human figure. In 1947 he sued the heirs of Vollard to recover a large number of works left in their possession after the death of the art dealer in 1939. Winning the suit, he established the right of an artist to things never offered for sale, and afterward he publicly burned 315 canvases that he felt were not representative of his best work. During the last 10 years of his life, he renewed his palette, adding greens and yellows, and painted some almost mystical landscapes: a good example is Christian Nocturne.
Among the major artists of the 20th-century school of Paris, Rouault was an isolated figure in at least two respects: he practiced Expressionism, a style that has never found much favour in France, and he was chiefly a religious painter—one of the most convincing in recent centuries. Both statements, however, need qualification. Rouault was not as fiercely Expressionistic as some of his Scandinavian and German contemporaries; in some ways his work is a late flowering of 19th-century Realism and Romanticism. And he was not an official church artist; his concern with sin and redemption was deeply personal.
Gordon Appelbe Smith
(from Wikipedia)
Gordon Appelbe Smith CM RCA (June 18, 1919 – January 18, 2020) was an English-born Canadian artist, known for expanding the dialogue between abstraction and representation, working with mediums such as painting, printmaking, and sculpting. Smith taught with contemporaries Bruno Bobak, B.C. Binning and Jack Shadbolt at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) for ten years, then for twenty-six years at the University of British Columbia before retiring in 1982 to paint full-time.
He was born Gordon Appelbe Smith in East Brighton, England.[1][2] His father, William George Smith, was an amateur watercolourist. He took Gordon and his brother Donald on frequent visits to the National Gallery, London and to the Tate. He attended the Harrow County School for Boys where Gordon received four years of formal art training and several prizes for his art.[2] In 1933, Smith’s parents separated. His mother Daisy Smith took the boys to live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.[2]
From 1935 to 1935, he studied at the Vancouver Normal School and Vancouver School of Art, then, from 1937 to 1940, he studied art at the Winnipeg School of Art.[3] In 1939, during his third year of art school, Smith enrolled in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles.[4] Before going overseas for war service, he took a vacation in Vancouver where he met and married Marion Fleming.[1] In 1942, he joined the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. He was first a lieutenant, then a Platoon Commander and then the Intelligence Officer.[4] In 1943, he was badly injured while landing at the beach in Leon Forte, Sicily.[1][4][5]
In 1944, Smith returned to Vancouver where the Vancouver Art Gallery had a solo show for the work he produced overseas.[1] He also attended the Vancouver School of Art in the same year to complete the fourth year of his art degree.[6] From 1945 to 1954, Smith taught at the Vancouver School of Art.[7] In 1947, he had his second solo show at Vancouver Art Gallery.[7] In 1951, he studied under Elmer Bischoff at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco where Abstract Expressionism held sway.[6] In 1956, Smith was invited to train teachers in the new faculty of Education Department at UBC.[8]
In 1960, his highly experimental work is chosen to represent Canada at the São Paulo Biennial.[2] In 1965, at the request of Arthur Erickson, Smith designed two murals for Erickson’s new Simon Fraser University campus building. The work, titled Mosaic Mural, is permanently installed along the sides of the west academic quadrangle.[9] For EXPO ’70 in Osaka, Japan, he was commissioned by Arthur Erickson to create an artwork for the Canadian Pavilion.[10]
In 1995, Smith won the “Structure with Red Sun Award”. He was named a member of the Order of Canada in 1996. He was an Education Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia (UBC). In 2007, he received the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts. In March 2009, at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, he was named a laureate and presented with the Governor General’s Award in the Visual and Media Arts.[11] He was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts[12]Smith’s works are included in the collections of the following museums:
- Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec[13]
- National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa[14]
- the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
- Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England
- Vancouver Art Gallery
In 2009 his massive wall sculpture Beach Tangle[15] was installed in the lobby of the West Vancouver Community Centre, one of the venues for celebration during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Tom Smith
| Born and educated in the United States, (BFA, Pennsylvania State, MFA, Alfred University, New York), Tom Smith moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick in 1971 to take a position as an art instructor in the school system. He went on to teach at the University of New Brunswick in the Faculty of Education, before deciding to pursue sculptural ceramics full time. Since then he became one of Canada’s best known ceramic artists, receiving numerous awards for his work. In 1992, he received the prestigious Strathbutler Award for Excellence in New Brunswick. In 1999, Smith was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts. Although many of his pieces were functional, it is the formal elements or sculptural concerns which dominated his work. According to Tom he was intrigued by “the existence of the object in space and the idea and nature of containment. The vessel as a three dimensional object allows and invites endless exploration in form and content”. The texture of the surfaces was also critical. “I get excited about a tear in clay as opposed to a cut . . . the mark of a broken piece of wood into the clay as opposed to a brush stroke of colour on the surface”. Colour was used primarily to enhance the form and involved sophisticated and often experimental glazes. Since 1982, he concentrated on Raku, a ceramic process developed in 14th century Japan utilizing a wood fired kiln. Many of his pieces incorporated an oriental aestheticism in conjunction with a very North American inspired use of the natural landscape. In addition to his ceramic work, Smith continued to produce an ongoing body of two dimensional work, which complemented his ceramic work in mood, tone, inspiration and aesthetic preoccupations. He participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions and his work is represented in both public and private collections around the world. |
NELSON SURETTE
Nelson Surette grew up in the Town of Yarmouth and on Surette’s Island, Yarmouth County. He was a self taught artist and painted most of his life. His paintings are included in the collections of the governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Parks Canada, Dupont and Imperial Oil. He had solo exhibitions at the following universities:
St. Francis Xavier, Antigonish, N.S., Ste-Anne, Church Point, N.S
St. Thomas, Fredericton, N.B.
Toronto University College, Toronto, Ontario.
The paintings are depicted in a film by Kingsley Brown “The Finest Kind” made for the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries. Surette’s work was on exhibit at Government House, Halifax for a year and a half to mark the 400th Anniversary of the founding of Acadia.
Roy Mandell MFA, painter and friend of the artist writes of Surette’s work, “The images flicker before us, imparting frailty and power. They are at once ethereal and monumentally solid.”
Nelson Surette died in 2004 at the age of 84.
Margo Tassi
Margo Tassi received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She has spent most of her adult life living and working in Philadelphia, PA. Tassi creates her images in oils and watercolours and also uses photos, etchings, and woodblock prints to explore her subject.
She has done plein air work at her artist residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont; Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, Temecula, California; and the Hambidge Center, Rabun Gap, Georgia.
Since 2001 she has spent four months a year painting in the Yarmouth, Nova Scotia area. There, her proximity to the Gulf of Maine and numerous lakes allows her to focus on the edges between land and water. She is a member of the Yarmouth Art Society and has shown with the Society on a regular basis.
She has had solo shows in Georgia, California, Vermont, and Philadelphia; and has shown her work extensively in group shows in the Philadelphia, PA and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia areas. Her work is in numerous private collections.
SILASSIE TUKAI (TUKI; TUKSI; SILASIE)
Born: 1919 Male E9-1768
Died: January 14, 1994
Resided: Inukjuak
Sculpture
Silassie’s wife Lydia Tukai is a crafts artist. Silassie has three
brothers who are all involved in carving: Lucassie, Noah, and Peter Tukai.
Silassie began carving at the age of thirty.
EXHIBITIONS:
Nov – Dec 1965, Arctic Values ’65, New Brunswick Museum with the cooperation of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, St. John, New Brunswick (illustrated catalogue)
February – April 1973, The Bessie Bulman Collection, Winnipeg Art Gallery Winnipeg, Manitoba (illustrated catalogue)
Sept – Oct 1981, The Jacqui and Morris Shumiatcher Collection of Inuit Art, Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan
(illustrated catalogue)
May – June 1987, Inuit Art Exhibition, Whitby Arts Incorporated, The Station Gallery,
Whitby, Ontario
Nov 1987 - Jan 1988, Inuitkonst fran Kanada - skulptor och grafik, Millesgarden, Lidingo, Sweden (illustrated catalogue)
Jan - Feb 1989, The Art of the Eskimo, Newman Galleries, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
COLLECTIONS:
Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec, Montreal, Quebec
Jacqui and Morris Shumiatcher Collection, Saskatchewan
Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal, Montreal, Quebec
Toronto-Dominion Bank Collection, Toronto, Ontario
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Maurice de Vlaminck
Maurice de Vlaminck, (born April 4, 1876, Paris, France—died October 11, 1958, Rueil-la-Gadelière), French painter who was one of the creators of the painting style known as Fauvism.
Vlaminck was noted for his brash temperament and broad interests; he was at various times a musician, actor, racing cyclist, and novelist. He was also a self-taught artist who proudly shunned academic training, aside from drawing lessons. In 1900 Vlaminck met the painter André Derain during a train accident, and the two shared a studio from 1900 to 1901.
In 1901 Vlaminck saw an exhibition of the paintings of the Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh, and like Derain and many other young artists, he was struck by van Gogh’s powerful brushwork and use of intense, non-naturalistic colours. That same year, Derain introduced Vlaminck to Henri Matisse. Vlaminck was soon experimenting with pure, intense colour drawn straight from the tube and applied in thick daubs. He exhibited with Matisse and Derain in 1905 at the Salon des Indépendants and at the controversial group show at the Salon d’Automne. It was at the latter exhibition that the critic Louis Vauxcelles called these artists fauves (“wild beasts”); he considered their canvases of bold colour, applied in a spontaneous and impulsive manner, too unrefined. Vlaminck usually preferred a palette of primary colours, as seen in Tugboat on the Seine, Chatou (1906).
Impressed by a retrospective exhibition of Paul Cézanne’s paintings in 1907, Vlaminck began to emulate the Post-Impressionist artist’s work. He adopted a more subdued palette and turned to painting landscapes with solid compositions. After World War I he left Paris and moved to the countryside, where he painted rural scenes in a dramatic yet mannered style. Vlaminck also continued to write poetry, fiction, and memoirs, and he illustrated a number of books.
By the editors of The Encyclopaedia Britannica
Published by Picta & Scripta, Paris, 1964
Jeanne Wellington
Jeanne K. Wellington is a well-known Yarmouth County artist. She was brought up in Wyoming, USA, and moved to Port Maitland, Nova Scotia about 1970. She paints landscapes and seascapes and is known primarily for her oils. She exhibited at Sign of the Whale Gallery.
E. Ray Wellington
I, E. Ray Wellington, a native of Colorado, grew up in the San Luis Valley where the opportunity to learn and enjoy wildlife was instilled by living in a remote area under pioneer-type conditions. I met my wife to be, Jeanne K. Davis, while serving in the armed forces during World War II and a life long appreciation of art was encouraged by Jeanne and her father J.K. Davis, both enthusiastic and accomplished artists. During my later military career, night classes were taken at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA. conducted by Herman Keys, an illustrious watercolor painter, who taught the wet-dry techniques and emphasized the importance of good technical material and equipment. At a later date in Newburgh, N.Y. I became a student and life-long friend of Coulton Waugh, a noted Hudson River painter: Mr. Waugh presented invaluable tutoring on composition and color techniques. During military service, several assignments in the Orient acquainted me with the discipline of eastern art, which was not only available but eagerly accepted. In 1960 an assignment to Baccaro Point Nova Scotia created a passion for this sparkling, beautiful land and upon retirement from the military, Jeanne and I made Nova Scotia our permanent residence. The hospitality of the people in Nova Scotia made the transition easy, and we never regretted coming to this land we love, where I constantly endeavor to capture its essence.
Ray Wellinton retired to Port Mailtland, Nova Scotia and became known for his watercolours of wild ducks in their coastal habitat. He exhibited at Sign of the Whale Gallery.
Liz Wilcox
Liz Wilcox is a professional water colour artist in Nova Scotia, Canada, and member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour.
Marguerite Porter Zwicker (1905 – 1993)
Marguerite Zwicker was born in Pleasant Valley, Nova Scotia.
Known for her scenes of Nova Scotia villages and landscapes rendered in watercolours, Marguerite Zwicker was an active promoter of art in and around Halifax. Her education took place at the Nova Scotia College of Art and in the United States under the German-American Abstract Expressionist painter, Hans Hofmann, whom she greatly admired. A teacher of painting at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Zwicker also conducted painting and cultural tours in Spain, Italy and Portugal. Her travels in these countries are expanded upon in her book, “On My Own”, published in 1959. In 1940 she, along with fellow-artist and husband, Leroy Zwicker, established the publication Maritime Art, later to become Canadian Art. In 1957, the couple took over ownership of Zwicker’s Gallery, at the time the only venue in Halifax which regularly featured art exhibitions that were open to the public. A member of the Nova Scotia Society of Artists, Zwicker exhibited with this association, as well as participated in several group shows at the Dalhousie Art Gallery, including an exhibit with her husband in 1958. A solo show followed many years later, in 1991, at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
Mrs. Zwicker was very active in support of art in Nova Scotia. Her generosity and that of her husband was acknowledged by the establishment of the Leroy and Marguerite Zwicker Gallery at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
Her work can be found in the collections of:
Confederation Centre Museum Art Gallery, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Dartmouth Heritage Museum, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia Art Bank, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick