# data[].attributes.body
If you'd like to learn more about Alex Colville and other Canadian artists, and their role in shaping Canada's identity, visit the course home page, Canadian History: The Shaping of an Identity at Art History For Real.

Image below: Alex Colville, Family and a Rainstorm, 1955

# data[].attributes.body
Acrylic emulsion on masonite, The National Gallery of Canada

# data[].attributes.body
In the Loge (1878), Mary Cassatt

# data[].attributes.body
Colville painted numerous works that feature 'the gaze'. In his works with women as the main subject, it is usually the women who are in control of the looking. Colville gives her the power. We can see this in one of his most well-known paintings, To Prince Edward Island (1965) where the main subject, the woman, is the doing the looking. Whether she's looking at us or at the approaching dock, it is difficult to determine. To Prince Edward Island (above) is approachable as it is intriguing. When looking at this work and all the others in this exhibition, several questions come to mind including, 'what is going on here?'

We could call Colville a feminist. In a letter to a curator at AGO about one of his paintings, Woman in Bathtub, he describes the woman's gaze in the work as “the searching vision of the female” and the “stupid and passive” approach of the male gaze: “The woman sees, I suppose, and the man does not” (Colville).

We can look to Colville's own relationship for clues to his motivations behind his works; he was married to Rhoda Wright for almost 70 years; she was a lifelong partner, mother of their four children, model for his works, and fellow artist.

References

Alex Colville, in a letter to curator Patrick Laurette, July 31, 1980, quoted in Andrew Hunter, Colville (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2014), 22.

Reinhardt, Jennifer. “The Chicago School of Media Theory Theorizing Media .” The Chicago School of Media Theory RSS, lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/gaze

# data[].attributes.body
Glazed gum arabic emulsion on board
New Brunswick Museum, Saint John

Nude and Dummy was the first that Colville sold to a museum; it was the painting he considered to be his first 'serious' work. The painting is meticulously constructed with its careful placement of geometric forms, quite different from his Impressionist style he used in is earlier works, including when we was a war artist. This painting is an example of how in some Realist works an object is placed in the painting to create tension and intrigue.

What is going on here?

# data[].attributes.body
The concept of 'the gaze' in art is a twentieth century phenomenon. It can be active, where the viewer is part of the painting, or passive where the viewer is a voyeur. It creates a dynamic and dialogue between the viewer and the subject of a painting. Who is doing the looking, and at whom?

Feminist theory expanded the idea further with the idea of the 'male gaze', defined as voyeuristic and objectifying women. (See Mary Cassat's In the Loge (below) where the subject of the painting, a woman, is being spied upon by a male audience member). 'The gaze' creates a power dynamic within an artwork that implies control.

# data[].attributes.body
Over his lifetime Colville was the recipient of numerous commissions and awards, and his works were featured in exhibitions around the world. A select few:

Commissioned by the Government of Canada to design coins commemorating her centennial year (1967)

Named an Officer in the Order of Canada in 1967

Invited to work as visiting artist at Santa Cruz University in 1967/68

Exhibits at Gemeentemuseum in Arnhem, the Netherlands, the Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, Germany, and Fischer Fine Art, London, England 1977

Named a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1982

Reference

“Alex Colville.” Alex Colville, Official Site of Canadian Artist Alex Colville , alexcolville.ca/bio/.

# data[].attributes.body
Martin Kemp, art scholar and historian, called Mr. Colville (pictured above) “the best Canadian artist of his time.” - The New York Times, William Yardley, July 13, 2013

# data[].attributes.body
Tempera on board
The National Gallery of Canada

Woman, Man and a Boat is one of Colville's early works; it is another intriguing scenario. What is happening? Adding layers of complexity are the two figures in the painting; we are observers of an exchange of 'gazes'.

# data[].attributes.body
Glazed tempera on board
Private Collection

# data[].attributes.body
Acrylic polymer emulsion on hardboard, collection of Sprott Securities, Toronto.

Another perspective on the act looking. A reverse viewpoint from the painting To Prince Edward Island. Or is it?

# data[].attributes.body
Colville painted in a style known as new realism or magic realism, characterized by paintings that showed realistic life scenes in stark settings, sometimes with odd placement of people and objects. Works of Realism often convey feelings of isolation or loneliness with depictions of a single figure, or two or more. Even multiple figures in Realist paintings can appear isolated and alone.

American Realists often painted scenes that appeared mysterious or uncanny, while Latin American and European Realists included elements of mysticism or magic. Colville's works are categorized in the Realist style, sometimes even Surrealist, but Colville disliked categorization of his work and described himself as a "conceptual" artist (Cronin).

Artists working in New Realism included American painters Edward Hopper (see painting above), Grant Wood and Andrew Wyeth, as well as Latin American artist Frida Kahlo.

Reference

Cronin, Ray. “Alex Colville - Significance and Critical Issues.” Art Canada Institute - Institut De L'art Canadien, Art Canada Institute , www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/alex-colville/significance-and-critical-issues.

# data[].attributes.body
The Office, 1953 Edward Hopper

# data[].attributes.body
Colville's works capture a moment in time—familiar, but sometimes not. His paintings can feel fraught, lonely, penetrating, inquisitive. He was one of the most significant Canadian painters of his time, yet Colville was considered an outsider with his distinctive, realist style that contrasted sharply with Abstract Expressionism and Post-Painterly Abstraction, two movements that dominated the art scene between the 1950s and 1970s.

Colville was born in Toronto and spent most of his life in New Brunswick. He graduated from Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB with a fine arts degree, then joined the Canadian Army as a war artist in WW II. After the war he continued painting, exhibiting his works in solo exhibitions in Canada, United States and Europe while teaching art at Mount Allison University. He retired from teaching and started painting full time in 1963.