SEVEN DECADES OF WORKS ON PAPER
Jack Shadbolt
Central Gallery
June 28 to August 30, 2014
Curated by Charo Neville, Kamloops Art Gallery
Coinciding with Ted Smith: A Retrospective, Jack Shadbolt: Seven Decades of Works on Paper showcases the recent addition of seventy-nine Jack Shadbolt works to the Kamloops Art Gallery’s permanent collection. Many of these works on paper were studies for major public artworks or large-scale paintings. Spanning seven decades, this selection of drawings is significant to an understanding of Shadbolt’s oeuvre and his contribution to the history of Canadian art.
Jack Shadbolt (1909-1998) was born in England and immigrated to Victoria, BC, with his family in 1921. One of Canada’s most distinguished artists, his career began in the 1930s and continued to flourish as a prominent force in Canadian visual art into the 1990s. After serving in World War II with the Canadian War Artist establishment, Shadbolt was head of the painting and drawing department at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) until 1966. Shadbolt produced three books and profoundly influenced art and artists in British Columbia through his instruction.
Shadbolt was one of Ted Smith’s most instrumental instructors during Smith’s studies at the Vancouver School of Art from 1960 to 1964. Emerging as an artist at the beginnings of Canadian modernism, Shadbolt was linked to a generation of artists who discovered and promoted abstraction in Canada. His drawings, paintings and murals were developed from personal experience and the world around him, serving as an authoritative voice for an art that questions the social order and confronts the modern condition.
Jack Shadbolt
Untitled, 1960s
watercolour on paper
Collection of the Kamloops Art Gallery, Gift from Simon Fraser University via the Estate of Doris Shadbolt
Photo: Kamloops Art Gallery
