Document généré le 2 oct. 2021 07:30 Vie des arts English Report L’art et la guerre dans tous les États Volume 49, numéro 194, printemps 2004 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/52732ac Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) La Société La Vie des Arts ISSN 0042-5435 (imprimé) 1923-3183 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer ce document (2004). English Report. Vie des arts, 49(194), 92–99. Tous droits réservés © La Société La Vie des Arts, 2004 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ ENGLISH REPORT TONY URQUHART'S LIFE PASSAGES: INSIDE + OUT an interview with John K. Grande the family had some ruled lettering, keen on the Group of Seven, but art open and got bigger and bigger. Born in Niagara Falls, Ontario in some advertising design from the school and a trip to Europe sort of One at the National Gallery of 1934, Tony Urquhart was known for Albright. It amazed me because it knocked that out of me. The first trip Canada is 5 1/2 feet in size. Soon all his abstract landscape style in the was all done by compasses. We didn't to Europe I saw old Masters in the four sides and the top were painted. 1950s. Associated with the London have Letraset then. I said "Oh! Wow! "flesh". All the paintings that I saw In 19671 cut one open with a sabre group of painters that included It must be a great school!" It was in art history class I now saw in saw and hinged it. Now I could hide Jack Chambers, Walter Redinger, a great school, but mainly because reality. I had my first works with things. Or I could change colour. Ed Zelenak, Paterson Ewen and they had good people, and the Isaacs Gallery in 1956, a solo show I could change volume. I could Gregory Curnoe, Urquhart was a Albright Knox Art Gallery was right there in January 1957, and another change gesture. You could open co-founder of CAR (Canadian Artists across the street so I had first hand in October of 1957 because I sold it and close it. You could change Representation). In 1965, Urquhart experience of all this abstract expres­ so well - mostly oil paintings - the texture. One was very rough on began integrating surreal, mythic sionist stuff. They were purchasing landscape with some abstraction. the outside and had black velvet for and symbolic elements into his art De Kooning, Rothko, Gorky, every­ its inner lining. There was nothing thing was there, even a Francis JG: In the 1950s you were pro­ in it. With some, you open a door and using a variety of combined media. ducing some remarkably abstract Tony Urquhart's "box landscapes", Bacon, which I initially thought was cannot see inside. It is just black. terrible. Two weeks later I was landscape work possibly under the containers with landscapes inside, JG: Tombstones, sarcophagi, painting away and found I was pro­ influence of Franz Kline and drew a lot of attention when were coffin shapes, all with a light dark ducing a "Bacon". I now think William de Kooning. first exhibited. Universal themes, all contrast. These are things one sees Bacon is by far the best painter of TU: I am quite eclectic. I always meticulously interpreted with an in Europe. Did a member of your that era. The Albright was strictly counseled my students to steal from eye for real life detail, all make his family work in a funeral home? a painting school. No sculpture. at least five different artists. Then art an invaluable part of Canada's art TU: My grandmother ran a No printmaking. people say you are original. I found scene. For Tony Urquhart, life is the out in The Crisis of Abstraction funeral home. So it is not surprising ultimate source for all thing (s). JG: You were one of the few (paintings from the 1950s) show that coffins are in my work. He was awarded the Order of Canadians to show in New York everybody worked on the surface But I didn't start with boxes... Part Canada in 1995. early on weren't you? a la prima (with opaque paint). But of it was seeing Baroque and JG: Did you show with Dorothy TL: I did exhibit individual my works were glazed so they Rococo churches in Germany Cameron in Toronto in the 1950s? paintings in New York, including looked old masterish. with no differentiation between the at the National Academy of Art and 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional, TU: Never formally. She used to JG: Gradually you moved into Design in the late 1950s. They pur­ between painting and sculpture. visit Niagara Falls in the mid - 1950s the 3-dimensional works, sculp­ chased a Francis Bacon-like piece Looking up on a church ceiling you when I was still in school. I used to tures with your Landscapes in a of mine that I have never seen since could not tell whether the putti were call her aunt Dorothy. She was so Box sculptures. and I was in the Guggenheim Inter­ 2D or 3D. This seemed to give me good to me. People from Toronto TU: The 3D started in 1964 national with Jack Shadbolt, Jean- leave to do this kind of sculpture. came with her and bought things. In when I came back from Europe. Paul Riopelle, Graham Coughtry and 1956 I went with the Isaacs Gallery. I realized when I saw Fra Angelico JG: Your paintings are so dif­ Charles Gagnon ( 1958). We won the When she opened a gallery (1959- or Duccio they had carved frames, ferent from your drawn pen and prize for the best group of paintings 1960), she tried to get me to exhibit gold leaf, they had substance. So ink sketches. The colours are so with her. I would have loved to, but JG: There is often this fusion when I came back I started doing vivid they could be called Baroque Av Isaacs wouldn't split my output. of natural forms and human built 3-dimensional stuff. I didn't actually or Rococo... Some of these paint­ JG: Tell me more about your structures - sometimes archaic - do boxes. The first thing I did was ings have a figure in the land­ early works? in your art. a papier mâché head with plastic scape. Are they autobiographical? TU: By accident I went to the TU: When I started out, I was an flowers and I painted it all up in oils. Albright School in Buffalo rather abstract landscape painter, espe­ Then I started doing landscape Hughey and Jim, 1999 oil and collage than OCAD in Toronto. A friend of cially as a student. Everybody was sketches on Little boxes. They didn't Collection: Mike Bevelander, Toronto 60.7 x 182.7 cm 92 VIE DES ARTS N°194 ENGLISH REPORT in your painting as well as SACKVILLE the more actual sculptural structures you have been INTERLACE: commissioned to do... this amalgam of metal sculp­ PAINTINGS BY JINNY YU tural passageways, free­ 12 March-10 April 2004 standing sculpture struc­ Struts Gallery tures, and living gardens Korean born Canadian painter j. elements are all part of the Jinny Yu is new to the Maritimes. art. Magic Wood (1987), at This is her first Atlantic Canada the MacDonald Stewart Art Interlace I (detail), 2003 exhibition since moving to Sackville mixed media on paper Centre has an archway, last year to teach at Mount Allison. 127 x170 cm something we also discover Place, it appears, plays an important in your paintings. role in her work. Prior to moving more precise, sections of the gallery TU: When I visited the Mac­ to Sackville, Jinny Yu's paintings walls the same size as the paintings Donald Stewart, I was told reflected her city life in Montreal are cut away. The paintings are set there had been a 100 year and Toronto. These paintings were in the cut away section. These paint­ old driveway there - since all done since moving to Sackville ings cast no shadow and become gone. So I designed to build and reflect her new very non-urban one with the gallery's walls. The Box Fantasy B The Wall, 1976 a 45 feet long, 25 feet wide and Pen and black ink with oil wash environment. A key to all her work result brings new meaning to the 15 foot high structure. Magic Wood on cream laid paper that I have seen is that her art is word illusion, as it is difficult to 14.5x11.3 cm is an homage to trees and Roma­ National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa a reflection or meditation on what place these paintings in traditional Gift of Jane Urquhart, Wellesley, Ontario nesque cathedrals. It has an abstract surrounds her. As Yu says: "I find space. Normally paintings are hung tree in its centre that moves ever so that I am very susceptible to the on a wall and remain separate both slighdy. You are encouraged to walk TU: Actually my Figure in the environment I am put into both psychologically and physically from through it - but of course it is a walk Landscape works were the subject visually and mentally." the wallspace.