Some decades ago, even before the Leafs won their last Stanley Cup, I as a young fellow used to hop on my bike in Hamilton’s east end and peddle seven miles to visit the Art Gallery of Hamilton in our city’s far west. Over time, a number of works in the Gallery’s collection have become part of my aesthetic consciousness and, happily, some are currently on display in the AGH’s centenary exhibition -Art for a Century: 100 for the 100th. If you haven’t already met, allow me to introduce you to a few of these.
First The Grand Windsor Hotel of 1939 by Reginald Marsh, probably for a dreary- sketched depiction of solitude, poverty and hopelessness that makes one feel vulnerable. For some reason, I’ve always also connected with several American painters who were Marsh’s contemporaries –Ben Shahn, Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper and Charles Burchfield whose works, alas, reside elsewhere- maybe because the forties as a decade resonates most in my imagination. It was a hell of a time for the world, but at least the arts took a stand for being human.
Next we have Robert Whale’s view of Hamilton of 1863, probably because, at the time of my first viewing, Hamilton was not an environment of pastoral bliss depicted here but instead Steeltown where our industries dumped polluted smoke into the air each night. In 1863, one could probably inhale the lush growth of nature and not the foul choking fumes of industry, and it was striking to know that once it had been that way.
Forbidden Fruit of 1889 by George Agnew Reid, which depicts a young lad lying in the tallish grasses and intensely absorbed in a book, was and is a favourite of many from this collection, I am told. Who hasn’t had the experience of entering the world of books – especially if they are forbidden – and being so much consumed by the new realities offered there that one could not return to this world?
William Brymmer’s The Vaughn Sisters of 1910 still teases one’s curiosity about the two young ladies’ inner world. Who were they back then, when I first saw them, and who are they now? One pleasure offered by a portrait is how it demands that the viewer submit to the world of the painting’s subject. With The Vaughn Sisters we have two distinct personalities, certainly present but also seductive in the seemingly unreachable remoteness of their thoughts. One is drawn to their world, but one is always an outsider. Moreover, who understands women?
Such is the case too with James Tissot’s Le Croquet of 1878 when, at least in wealthier circles, one’s daily attire was not simply clothing but an event as well, an elegant one at that. With this Tissot, one has options in the degrees of charm, seduction, mystery, and aesthetic pleasure afforded by the painting’s subject. She is a young lady of black stockings, a misty vagueness in her eyes, and delicate fingers caressing a croquet stick as a medium sized white dog—Alaskan Husky? – looks on. Once in the 1980s, I discovered that a gallery in London had two engravings of the Le Croquet painting for sale and bought one. When I told friend Julius Lebow, owner of the then Westdale Gallery of my purchase, he immediately bought the other.
But not all of this visit was down memory lane. Joyce Wieland’s thoroughly enjoyable Swan’s Cupboard from 1990 proved that an installation, unlike some, can burst with life and humour and pure joy in its creation. William Kurelek’s This is the Nemesis from 1965 is fiery and apocalyptic and disturbing. Emily Carr’s Yan Q. C. I. from 1912 is atypically vibrant with singing hues and makes one want to give familiar and more darkly-hued Carr paintings another look. The Riopelle from 1960 feels bright and bold with its wider than usual white areas oozed across the surface and with its explosive and anti-stasis statement. It is also a pleasure to see Gustave Courbet’s Le Puits Noir of 1870, a Leger from 1947, and much else. There is also a delightful work titled Crème de la Crème de la Crème by General Idea. I smiled at this one–and I’m taking the tour next time to find out what those three poodles are doing? Runs until April 26,
Another current exhibition at the AGH until February 8 is Painting Hamilton. It is reassuring to experience ten such imaginative sensibilities as those whose works here display a compelling variety in intention, method, and attitude. Lorne Toews for one “is interested in depicting human form’ but what I also experience is four people, compassionately perceived by the artist, whose eyes penetrate through me. Manny Trinh states “these works come out of a desire to capture memories of my childhood in Vietnam” and, as he ably negotiates the shapes and lines and colours in which people live, he forces the viewer, overwhelmed by the dazzling complexity of edges and hues, to inhabit them too.
With Christina Sealey’s Anna, one anticipates intense gravitational movement in both space and emotion. One senses this: it’s happening and also about to happen. Catherine Gibbon, meanwhile, offers 16 square feet of ambiguous fire-bursting landscape in, surprisingly, chalk pastel and it really does burn. Charles Meanwell’s huge works offer an interesting interplay of method and depiction and can be massive and crude and undeniable, all with a touch of audacity. Five more artists -Jennifer Carvalho, David Hucal, Daniel Hutchinson, Matthew Schofield, and Beth Stuart- also bring creative issues to the fore with intriguing results that sometimes please and sometimes challenge. A good show here. Until February 8.
That most influential of artists, Paul Cezanne, painted over 300 still lifes in his day and The World is an Apple: The Still Lifes of Cezanne is, typical of the AGH, a rewarding plum of a show in concept and presentation, one that demands a repeat visit. “I want to astonish Paris with an apple” declared Cezanne, who came to Paris in early 1860s. One grouping of paintings here, four being examples of the more mainstream and au courant approach of others and three by Cezanne show the artist already contradicting the methods and attitudes of the conventional going rate of aesthetics
In the next room, second of two if you’re counting, there are three paintings by Van Gogh, Braque, and Emile Bernard, all intended to provoke comparative insights. Three of the paintings by Cezanne are not of fruit but of skulls, and this arrangement seems to declare both that a skull is an apple is a skull and Cezanne’s view that “Objects never cease to live.” Two paintings of flowers in a vase from 1880 and 1900 to 1903 respectively show the development of a driven painter’s mind to discover what he and his art can do.
During my visit, a large group of students went off individually to sketch specific paintings by Cezanne-and that is how it should be in any culture worth its salt. The arts, past and present, have much to teach us. Over and over in its many compelling exhibitions I’ve enjoyed during recent years, the AGH has made that point excitingly clear. I am indeed a junkie for art -and a good fix is always available, as it was many years ago, at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Cezanne runs to February 8.