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9 - 22 SEPTEMBER, 2021 OPENING RECEPTION SATURDAY, September 11, 2021
about the collectors: Livia & Otto Thur Livia Thur started her studies in Law at the University of Budapest in 1947. She escaped the Communist system in 1949 and pursued her studies at the University of Louvain, Belgium, where she graduated in 1955 with a Doctorate in Law, an M.A. in Political Science and an M.A. in Economics. Otto Thur began his university studies in Budapest and would also complete his degree in Economics at the University of Louvain after his escape. They met in Louvain and would marry in France in 1955. 4
In 1959 following a few years as research assistants at the Institute of Economic and Social Research in Louvain, both a were offered professorships at the Faculty of Economics, University of Montreal. Whilst there Otto also gave lectures at the University of Laval, in Quebec, and was member of several commissions appointed by the Quebec government. Livia concentrated her teaching and research on the history of economic thought, international economic relations, and on the economic responsibilities of the modern state while also being an executive member of the university’s Board of Governors. From 1970 to 1975 she held the position of Vice-Principal of Academics and Research at the University of Quebec in Three Rivers as well being a member of Boards of Directors at Bell Canada, Canada Development Corporation and the steel com-
panies Sidbec and Sidbec-Dosco Ltd. Both transitioned to the Public Service in Ottawa in 1974. Otto was Vice President of the National Economic Council of Canada and would later become Associate Deputy Minister at the Department of Finance. He ended his career as President of the Canadian Textile Board. Livia joined as senior Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of State for Science and Technology and would later, upon the Prime Minister’s recommendation, be appointed by the Governor General as Vice Chairman of the National Energy Board until 1984. In 1981 Livia received an Honorary Doctorate in Social Sciences from the University of Laval Quebec for her contributing influence in steering Canada’s economic life. They were passionate and avid art collectors with a strong interest in Canadian painters. This collection was lovingly accumulated over the years to reflect their personality, knowledge, and desires to support the arts in Canada. The hope is that each of these works will find homes that hold a similar passion and desire for art.
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The Collection Takao Tanabe CM ,OBC, RCA (b. 1926)
Takao Tanabe is an important figure in Canadian painting and printmaking. Tanabe creates landscape paintings of the British Columbia coast, eliminating non-essential details, creating serene compositions which reward long contemplation. He is well known for his transcendent light and atmosphere, which fluctuates from delicate and misty to stormy and brooding. Dominated by strong horizons and large swaths of water and sky, his works are devoid of man-made elements such as cars, telephone poles, and architectural structures. 6
The son of a commercial fisherman, Tanabe summered in fishing camps on the Skeena River, B.C. He was interned as a Japanese alien during World War II. Tanabe’s abstract paintings of the 1950s (Interior Arrangement with Red Hills, 1957) were succeeded in the early 1960s by Japanese-influenced ink drawings (Falling Water, 1967). From 1961 to 1968, Tanabe taught at the Vancouver Art School, painting murals. In 1968 he worked in Philadelphia, moving in 1969 to New York City. Based there until 1972, he painted hardedge geometric abstracts in strong colours. These evolved in the 1970s into semi-abstract landscapes dominated by wide horizons, influenced by Tanabe’s encounters with northern Pennsylvania, the Hudson River Valley, and the Canadian praire and foothills. From 1973, Tanabe headed the Art Department and was Artist-in-Residence at Banff School of Fine Arts. He moved to Vancouver Island in 1980.1 1 https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/takao-tanabe
Takao Tanabe, Skeena R 1 1970 96” x 48” acrylic on canvas
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William Perehudoff CM, SOM, RCA (1918 – 2013) Perehudoff was born in Saskatoon in 1918 and was raised on a farm in the Doukhobor community of Bogdanovka, Saskatchewan. His formal education ended at grade eleven, but he pursued art studies with French artist Jean Chariot at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado (1948–49), with Amedee Ozenfant at the Ozenfant School of Fine Arts, New York, New York (1949–50) and through the Emma Lake Artist’s Workshops (various years, 1957 to 1990), where he became acquainted with teachers Kenneth Noland and Jules Olitski. It was at one of these workshops in 1962 that he met New York art critic Clement Greenberg, who introduced him to Post-painterly Abstraction, which had an enormous impact upon his art and career. 8
Perehudoff became acquainted with Jack Bush at the suggestion of Kenneth Noland in the mid 1960s. He regularly visited Bush thereafter and felt an affinity for the way Bush worked in commercial art to support his family, as did Perehudoff. Perehudoff’s work has been represented in numerous public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Remai Modern in Saskatoon, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Art.2
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Perehudoff
William Perehudoff, Amyot 15, 1975, 51.5” x 142” acrylic on canvas
Jacques Godefroy de Tonnancour CM, OQ, RCA (1917 – 2005) de Tonnancour studied at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal in 1937 but after three years left as he found the teaching too conservative. He joined the Contemporary Arts Society of Montreal in 1942.
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Though he admired Borduas as a painter, he was not in agreement with the political direction of the Automatistes. In 1948, he helped compose the manifesto which Alfred Pellan used to establish the Prisme d’yeux group. “We seek a painting freed from all contingencies of time and place, of restrictive ideology, conceived without any literary, political, philosophical or other meddling which could dilute its expression or compromise its purity” stated a translation of Prisme d’yeux that was published in Canadian Art. This group opposed those who would sign the Refus Global later that year, feeling that painting should not be a political act. His work is included many public collections including the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, National Gallery of Canada, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Carleton University Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Museum London, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, among others. In 1958, works by de Tonnancour along with those of James Wilson Morrice, Anne Kahane and Jack Nichols represented Canada at the Venice Biennale.3 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_de_Tonnancour
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Jacques Godefroy de Tonnancour, Echos et Vestiges de L‘age Bronze #10, 1975, 16” x 16”, mixed media on board
David Thauberger
OC, SOM, RCA (b. 1948 - )
David Thauberger was born in Holdfast. He studied ceramics at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus, where ceramic sculptor David Gilhooly served as an early mentor, inspiring Thauberger and others to create art that was rooted in their own life experience and their own geographical region. He earned his BFA in 1971 and his MA in 1972 from California State University (Sacramento). He then studied with Rudy Autio at the University of Montana in Missoula, earning his MFA in 1973. 12
Thauberger is known for his paintings of the vernacular architecture and cultural icons of Saskatchewan. Together with his paintings of popular culture and postcard images of tourist meccas far and wide, his images of Saskatchewan are articulate debates involving art, culture, and how we view our world, presenting a hyper-real picture of our context that transcends regionalism while capturing the heart of what it means to be from Saskatchewan. In addition to his other memberships and awards, in 2017 when he received a Canada 150 Award, and is a recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Medal in 2012, the Lieutenant Governor’s Saskatchewan Artist Award in 2009.4
4 http://www.davidthauberger.com/biography.htm
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David Thauberger, Northern Painting, 1980, 68.25” x 96”, acrylic on canvas
Otto Donald Rogers, RCA (1935 – 2019) Rogers attended high school in Kindersley, and then studied at the Saskatoon Teachers’ College from 1952 to 1953. He took an art class with Wynona Mulcaster, who was impressed by his talent and encouraged Rogers to pursue a career in art. Mulcaster introduced him to cubism, a style he was to adopt for himself.
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Rogers attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1954 to 1959. In 1955 he obtained a scholarship from the Saskatchewan Arts Board that let him attend the Emma Lake Artist’s Workshop led by Jack Shadbolt. He obtained a BSc in Art Education in 1958 and an MSc in Fine Art in 1959. He joined the faculty of the arts department of the University of Saskatchewan, where he taught from 1959 to 1988. From 1973 to 1978 Rogers was head of the university’s art department. The sculptor Anthony Caro asked Rogers to participate in his Triangle workshop in New York in 1984, and in a second Triangle workshop in Barcelona in 1987. The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art purchased three of Rogers’ sculptural reliefs.5 In 1963, Greenberg singled him out in Canadian Art as the only “big attack” painter in Saskatoon, one with a “fullness of inspiration.” He soon became a recognized national art figure. By the 1970s, Rogers was exhibiting in Toronto, Montreal, Paris and Milan.6 5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Rogers; 6 https://canadianart.ca/features/otto-rogers-and-a-life-in-art/
Otto Rogers, Summer Fragrance, 1973, 60” x 96”, acrylic on canvas
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Otto Rogers, Trees On Landscape Plane, ca.1968, 28” x 40”, mixed media on paper
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Otto Rogers, Trees On Landscape Plane, 1968,25” x 38”, watercolour & tempera on paper
Alan Wood (1935 – 2013) Wood was born in the town of Widnes, in Lancashire, England. His early interest in art was due to the support and encouragement he received from both his father and his high school art teacher.
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Wood studied art at the Liverpool College of Art and credits his success as an artist to his good fortune to be in the right places at the right times. His involvement with the lively art and music scene in Liverpool during the late fifties led him to the innovative St. Ives Artists Colony in Cornwall, which in turn opened the door to a successful 6-year teaching career at the prestigious Cardiff College of Art in Wales. Alan Wood moved to Canada in 1971 and settled in British Columbia in 1974. Since that time he produced his most personal and mature work as an artist. His interest in the dynamics of light and colour from the ocean, beach, forest and sky dominated his landscape work throughout his career. In 1983 Alan Wood gained international recognition for taking his painting directly into the landscape with his “Ranch” creation. This 320-acre painted construction built in the foothills of the Alberta Rockies was a monumental exploration of colour and form.7
7 https://petleyjones.com/alan-wood-1935-2017/
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Alan Wood, Shawnigan, 1976, 33” x 80.75” x 4.5”, mixed media
Michel Lagacé (b.1950 - )
Originally from Rivière-du-Loup, Michel Lagacé lives and works in NotreDame-du-Portage. After studying at the University of Quebec in Montreal (Baccalaureate, 1975 and Maîtrise in plastic arts, 1982), he devoted himself to painting and the creation of digital works. 20
Since 1976, the artist has presented his work in individual exhibitions and has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Quebec and abroad. Culturally active in the region, Michel Lagacé taught for more than thirty years (1976-2010) at the Department of Arts of Cégep de Rivière-du-Loup and participated in the emergence of the group of artists Voir à l ‘Is Contemporary Art. He has also produced several works of public art, including some in Bas-Saint-Laurent. Many of his works are in the major public collections of Canada.8
8 https://www.mbsl.qc.ca/en/node/133
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Michel Lagace, Microcosme, Peinture No 2, 1984, 49.5” x 80.5”, Mixed Media: acrylic On Canvas with wood relief
William Kurelek CM RCA (1927 – 1977) William Kurelek was born north of Willingdon, Alberta in 1927. In 1947 he attended the University of Manitoba, where he majored in Latin, English, and history. In 1949, he began studying at the Ontario College of Art (OCA). Dissatisfied with what he perceived as an overemphasis on grades and competition at the OCA, he resolved to study with the Mexican social realist painter David Alfaro Siqueiros (at the Institudo de Allende) in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
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Kurelek made his way to Mexico in 1950. He acknowledged that his time there proved “a great growing-up experience” that broadened his artistic awareness and attuned him to social issues, such as the developing world’s grinding poverty, that would influence his mature beliefs system. However, in 1952 he boards a cargo ship to London, England and commits himself to the Maudsley psychiatric hospital. It is here that he finds his faith in God and Catholicism. In the 1960s Isaacs Gallery represented some of the country’s most avant-garde contemporary artists. Kurelek felt himself to be, and was viewed by many, as the art world’s “odd man out.” It is also at this time that Alfred H. Barr (director of the MoMA) selects Kurelek’s painting for their collection. By the mid-1960s Kurelek was rekindling his love for his Canadian prairie birthplace. He would make recurring sketching trips throughout Western Canada and the Maritimes, Arctic, and Pacific Coast in subsequent years.9 9 excerpt from: William Kurelek: work and Life by Andrew Kear; https://www.aci-iac. ca/art-books/william-kurelek/biography/
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William Kurelek, Bee Keeper, 1969, 17.75” x 27” (26” x 35” framed), Oil on panel
Jean Paul Lemieux CC RCA GOQ (1904 - 1990)
Lemieux was born in Quebec City. He was raised in Quebec City until 1917 when his family moved to Montreal. There Lemieux went to the Collège Mont-Saint-Louis, then Loyola College. In September 1926 Lemieux enrolled at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal in order to become a professional painter. After returning to his schooling at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, he graduated in 1934 where he was subsequently hired as a assistant teacher. Later in 1937 he accepted a teaching position at the École des beaux-arts de Québec, in Quebec City. He retired in 1965.
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In 1934 he won the William Brymner Prize, an award for artists under the age of thirty. In the 1940s Lemieux response to the automatiste movement was to create even more narative work than ever, which later would be known at his “Primitivist Period” (1940-46). In 1942 he was chosen to be a part of the UNESCO exhibition at the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, at which point he became known beyond North America. In 1954 he received a grant from the Royal Society of Canada to travel to France. From his experience in France, he was inspried and subsequently lead to his “Classical period” which would last from 1956 to 1970. As Lemieux aged his work transformed and gave way to a more tragic period, known as his “Expressionist period” (1970-1990).10 10 Jean Paul Lemieux Life and work by Michèle Grandbois; https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/jean-paullemieux/biography/
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Jean Paul Lemieux, Les Enfant (from La Petit Poule D’Eau), 1971, 10” x 8”, lithograph 84/200
Denis Demers RCA (1948 – 1987) Demers studied at the University of Quebec, at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, then at Concordia University in Montreal. At the age of 26, Demers found himself in Morocco (Marrakesh) where his work took a transformation and a rebirth. He would revisit often. It was the space and silence of the desert that supplied him with an endless source of inspiration as can be seen in his works. He quickly occupied an important place among the artists of his generation. Denis Demers was an artist esteemed not only for his modern art but also 26 for his low-key personality. Museums and public collections Collection of works of art, University of Montreal UQAM Gallery Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery, Concordia University Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art Joliette Art Museum Lachine Museum National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec (MNBAQ) La Pulperie de Chicoutimi11 11 Denis Demers – L’espace du souvenir by Gilles Daigneault, Jacques Cartier et Le Nouveau Monde, Volume 29, numéro 115, juin–juillet–août 1984; https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Demers#cite_note-2
Denis Demers Assises 2 1983 11.5” x 18” Mixed media on paper
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Denis Demers Assises 1983 11.5” x 18” Mixed media on paper
Nicholas Houghton
(b. 1953 - )
Houghton received his masters of fine art at the Nova Scotia College and Design, and later received a PhD at the Univeristy of Roehampton. Nicholas Houghton is based in London and Folkestone, England. He has previously lived and worked in Portugal, Belgium and Canada and exhibited in London, Berlin, Leuven, Maastricht, Gijón, Montreal, Toronto and several other Canadian cities. His work uses a variety of media, the most common being lens-based accompanied by text, through which he tells stories. 28
Houghton teaches part-time at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK. Other institutions where he has taught include; University of the Arts London, University of Leeds, Cleveland College of Art & Design, Ravensbourne, University of Greenwich, Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Université du Québec and Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. Examples of his works can be found in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and the Confederation Centre Charlottetown. He was invited to participate in residencies at the Centre for Drawing Project Space, Wimbledon in 2008 and 2009.12
12 http://www.nicholashoughton.com/info-page-nm.html
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Nicholas Houghton, Still ife with keenex, 1977, 20” x 26”, pencil and coloured pencil on paper
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