GERALD LEOPOLD SQUIRES 1937-2015 Chronology 1937 Born in Change Islands, Newfoundland, November 17th. His parents are Salvation Army officers Samuel and Mabel (Payne) Squires. 1939 At the outbreak of World War II, father leaves the family in Greenspond, to join the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit in Scotland while mother continues her work with the Salvation Army. 1939-45 Mother and children live successively at Exploits, Long Pond, Green’s Harbour and again Exploits. 1945 Father returns from overseas and mother resigns from her work with the Salvation Army. Mabel and the boys move in with Samuel’s parents in Bonavista until he finds work with the Bowater Paper Company in Corner Brook, where mother buys a house on Bayview Heights. Here they live together as a family. 1947 Father moves to Toronto, Ontario, for work. 1949 Mother leaves Corner Brook with her three sons, David, Gerald and Fraser to join Samuel in Toronto. 1950 2 Attends Gledhill Public School, Toronto. Here he first meets Ken Watson, who becomes a fellow artist and a lifelong friend. 1954 Enrolls in the four-year art program at Danforth Technical School, Toronto, (now Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute). Goes on many sketching trips, often with teacher Dan Logan, artist friends, and like-minded classmates. 1957 Graduates from Danforth Technical School, Toronto, majoring in commercial and fine arts. He apprentices as a stained-glass artist with McCausland’s Stained Glass Studio, Toronto and works part-time as an editorial artist with the Toronto Telegram. With Dan Logan and Ken Watson, he rents rooms to use as studios in a large house at Avenue Road and Yorkville in Toronto. 1958 He works part-time as editorial artist with the Toronto Telegram, attends regular drawing sessions at the Artist’s Workshop, Toronto, takes night classes at the Ontario College of Art and spends his free time doing his own studio and outdoor painting works, as well as painting and copying in the Art Gallery of Toronto (now Art Gallery of Ontario). During the summer, he takes a painting trip to Blue Rocks, NS, a journey he will repeat annually for the next two years. He holds an exhibition of watercolours and oils at the Beach Library, Toronto. 1959-60 He studies printmaking for six months with Carl Pappe in Taxco, Mexico. On the way back to Toronto, stops in New York where he paints and copies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1960 3 After returning to Toronto from Mexico, he works full-time as an editorial artist with the Toronto Telegram, where, over the course of time, he has his own columns entitled Squires’ Sketchbook and Squires’ Sketchbook of Churches. He participates in juried exhibitions and holds a solo show, Gerry Squires: Paintings and Drawings, at The Pollock Gallery, Toronto. This same year, he meets Gail Tooker, whom he marries on December 17th at St. George the Martyr Anglican Church, just across the street from his Toronto studio on John Street (behind the Art Gallery of Toronto). He drives with Gail and fellow-artist John Gibson to Blue Rocks, NS, to paint and to New York to visit galleries with Gail, John Gibson and artist friend Diane Havelock. 1961 As part of a protest in Nathan Phillips Square against Toronto’s restrictions on outdoor art exhibitions, he is one of five artists who open the way to the city’s now well- established outdoor art shows. 1962 Drives with Gail to Vancouver on a painting trip, moves to Balmuto Street, Toronto, and goes on a retreat to the St. John the Evangelist Mission (Cowley Fathers) in Bracebridge, ON. 1963 Birth of daughter Meranda in Toronto, where the family now lives on Carleton Street. Paintings & Drawings: Gerry Squires and Ken Watson, opens at Tygesen Gallery, Toronto. 1964 Birth of daughter Esther in Gormley, ON, where the family has rented an old farmhouse. Takes a trip to New York with Ken Watson to visit galleries. Group exhibitions include 23rd Annual Western Ontario Exhibition, Art Gallery of London, ON and 14th Annual Winter Exhibition, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, ON. 4 1965 While living in Willowdale, ON, he obtains a leave of absence from the Telegram and takes his first trip back to Exploits, Newfoundland. On his return to Ontario, he moves to Rosebank, near Pickering, on the shores of Lake Ontario. Receives the Saidye and Samuel Bronfman “Best Young Artist Award” at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ 82nd Annual Spring Exhibition. Holds a solo exhibition, Drawings for St. Francis of Assisi and Other Recent Works, at Helene Arthur Galleries, Toronto and at St. Ansgar Lutheran Church, Toronto. The exhibition at Helene Arthur Galleries is reviewed by David Silcox in the Toronto Telegram. Group exhibitions include 82nd Annual Spring Exhibition, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal; 15th Annual Winter Exhibition, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, ON; 39th Annual Exhibition Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour, Ontario Art Gallery, Toronto and National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; 24th Annual Western Ontario Exhibition, Art Gallery of London, ON. 1966 Holds a solo exhibition The Canticles of St. John of the Cross, with accompanying catalogue, at the Mazelow Gallery (formerly Helene Arthur Galleries), Toronto, which is reviewed by Kay Kritzwiser in the Toronto Telegram. Group exhibitions include the Women’s Rental Exhibition, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. He also participates with Gail in an intensive seven day Zen Buddhist session in Rochester, NY. 1967 A founder of the Oshawa Art Gallery (now the Robert McLaughlin Gallery), he is also a contributor to the first group exhibition of the founders of the Oshawa Art Gallery. 1969 Lives in Claremont, ON until the spring of this year, when he resigns from the Toronto Telegram and returns to Newfoundland to begin life in Shoal Brook, Bonne Bay as a 5 full-time artist. Gail opens a home gallery to sell his work, as well as the works of Newfoundland’s west coast artists Stewart Montgomerie, Lise Sorenson, and Roger Aldworth. The Wanderer Series opens at the Picture Loan Gallery in Toronto. Group exhibitions include All Maritime Exhibition, Art Gallery, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL; Founding Members Exhibition, Oshawa Art Gallery, Oshawa, ON; Contemporary Painters of Newfoundland, Art Gallery, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s. 1970 Moves to Corner Brook where he lives on Keough’s Lane, (Humbermouth). He and Gail complete the District Vocational School’s nine-month ceramic course and he teaches art classes for Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) Extension Service. He is commissioned with Stewart Montgomerie to decorate the walls of the children’s section of the Christopher Fisher Division of Western Memorial Regional Hospital. 1971 Moves to the abandoned lighthouse residence in Ferryland, NL. The Wanderer Series opens at the Art Gallery, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, and at the Corner Brook Arts & Culture Centre. His work is included in the exhibition Painters in Newfoundland, at the Picture Loan Gallery, Toronto. 1972 Premature birth and death of his son Damon Frazer Squires. He is awarded a Canada Council grant through Memorial University as Artist in Residence and is a guest on Take 30 from Newfoundland, a CBC TV Special. His work is included in the exhibition Newfoundland Today, at the Picture Loan Gallery, Toronto. 1973 He is awarded a second Canada Council grant through Memorial University of Newfoundland as Artist in Residence and with a loan from the provincial government, is 6 able to buy an old fish shed that he and Stewart Montgomerie convert into a sculpture studio – “Headland Studio”. His work is included in the exhibition 10 Newfoundland Artists, at The Playhouse, Fredericton, NB. 1974 He is commissioned by Canada Permanent Trust to create Driftwood Piece, a welded steel wall-relief sculpture. He holds an exhibition of ink drawings, Ferryland Downs Series, at Gallery Mason, St. John’s and is part of Headland Studios Exhibition, at the Art Gallery, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, and at The Gallery, St. John’s. 1975 Receives a commission from the Canadian Catholic Conference for the painting Son of Man for reproduction in the new Sunday Mass Book. Group exhibitions include Exhibition of Artists’ Chess Sets, The Rema Greenburg Gallery, New York, USA; Studies in Steel: Montgomerie, Aldworth and Squires, Art Gallery, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, which travelled to New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, and Black Exposition, Memorial University, St. John’s. 1976 The Boatman: A Relentless Journey opens at the Art Gallery, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s and travels to government Arts and Culture Centres across the province, as well as to galleries in Atlantic Canada and British Columbia. He is also part of the group exhibition Newfoundland Editions, Art Gallery, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s and Aggregation Gallery, Toronto. He features in an article by Sandra Gwyn in Saturday Night magazine: “The Newfoundland renaissance”. 1977 7 He receives a commission from the federal government’s Department of Public Works for a five-foot welded steel sculpture, Winged Torso for the Paradise, NL post office and is part of the circulating exhibition: 50 Canadian Drawings, The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, NB. 1978 Portraits by Gerry Squires, opens at the Art Gallery, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s. Group exhibitions include The Legacy of Surrealism in Canadian Art, Agnes Etherington Arts Centre, Queens University, Kingston, ON, which traveled to Canada House, London, England and Centre culturel canadien, Paris, France; Art Collection d’art, Patmos Gallery, Toronto. 1979 The Ferryland Downs Series opens at the Art Gallery, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s and travels across the province and throughout Atlantic Canada.