August 24, 2010-February 20, 2011Alex Colville's 90th birthday on August 24, 2010 is an excellent reason to celebrate the life and the art of one of Atlantic Canada's most renowned artists. To mark the event, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia is mounting an installation of select Colville works taken from the Gallery's
Permanent Collection.
Born in Toronto in 1920, Colville moved with his family to Amherst, Nova
Scotia in 1929 and later studied art at Mount Allison University under
Stanley Royle. Graduating in 1942, Colville joined the Canadian Army and
served in Europe as a member of the War Art program. An extensive
collection of his work from this time can be found at the Canadian War
Museum. Following World War II, Colville taught art and art history at
Mount Allison University from 1946 to 1963 before devoting himself
full-time to his painting and printmaking. He has resided in Wolfville,
Nova Scotia since 1973.
Several of Colville’s paintings are on continuous exhibition at the Art
Gallery of Nova Scotia, including
Ocean Limited, 1962;
Three Girls on
a Wharf, 1953;
Dog in Car, 1999; and
Studio, 2000. The ten prints and sketches chosen for this particular celebration
span these works and both paintings and prints exhibit the heightened
realism, eerie lighting, and dramatic, layered composition, which hints
at a seething chaos and darkness kept in check by the careful
structuring of the image for which Colville is known.
Preparatory
sketches are an integral part of Colville’s painting process. The two
sketches for
Three Girls on a Wharf allow for the differences between the
initial planning for the painting – the
positioning of architectural elements, the levels of dress of each of
the girls, as well as the fastidious plotting of geometry and space –
and the end result to be examined.
Alex Colville’s subject
matter is customarily chosen from his personal environment – his family
(
Sleeper, 1975;
Fête Champêtre, 1984;
Snow, 1969; and
Sunrise, 1970),
his pets (
Artist and Cat, 1979), and the landscape near his home (
Crow
with Silver Spoon, 1972;
Border Collie, 1972; and
Heron, 1977). His
works are highly representational reflections of a world that is both
familiar and enigmatic; recognizing the importance of the ordinary,
Colville is an expert at drawing out the often overlooked depth of the
everyday. Experiencing one of Colville’s images invariably makes the
viewer question what is happening in this particular moment in time,
with vague, unsettling answers suggested in the complexly coded image.
Photo: Alex Colville, Ocean Limited, detail, 1962, oil on synthetic resin on board, 68.5 x 119.3 cm, purchased with funds provided by Christopher Ondaatje, Toronto, Ontario, the Art Sales and Rental Society, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a private donor