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Fertig supports BC Artists
Among the artists that Mona Fertig has recognized and supported are those whose artwork has been sold to support her publishing ventures, including:
JACK AKROYD (1921-1996) was born in Halifax, England. In 1947, he immigrated to Ontario to work as a machinist. It only took 18 months before he quit the CNR job to enroll at the Ontario College of Art in 1949. After graduating, in 1953, Jack moved to the West Coast, taking on various jobs. Jack worked full-time job as a draftsman with a Vancouver consulting engineering firm. He sketched and painted in spare time and between jobs. In 1961, he lived in Kitsilano and declared himself a freelance artist. Jack is quoted as saying "I figured if I could generate $100 per month, I could make it."; As not many of his early works sold, Jack supported himself by helping local sculptors. While Jack remained comparatively unknown on the West Coast, his work has been sought after in Japan as well as in Canada.
UNITY BAINBRIDGE (1916-) O.B.C. V.S.A. studied at the Vancouver School of Art and graduated in 1936. Her portrait was one of a number drawn by E.J. Hughes that was reproduced in the 1936 Graduation issue of Behind The Palette. During the 1930s she travelled alone through the interior of British Columbia, up and down the coast and across to Vancouver Island for the sole purpose of painting the native people in their own environment. Her subjects include squatters' shacks, Japanese and native villages, and portraits. She published two books; "The Lullaby of Lillooet" and "Songs of Seton". An art teacher and author, Bainbridge received the Order of British Columbia in 1993 and a Queen's Jubilee medal. Her work is at the VAG and in many private collections. She lives in West Vancouver, British Columbia.
GORDON CARUSO (1923 -2004) was a British Columbian painter in the abstract tradition. He and his contemporaries, such as Gordon Smith and Peter Aspell, set the direction for many B.C. artists. Caruso was also a powerful teacher and communicator who influenced many artists during his substantial teaching career. Many pieces of Caruso's art can be read as a reaction to his Second World War service in The Special Service Force. Caruso has exhibited in major North American galleries, and his work is in numerous private and corporate collections. He taught at the University of B.C., Simon Fraser University, Vancouver School of Art and Vancouver's Langara College. His final studio was on Salt Spring Island where he continued to create his mixed media sculptural collages.
GEORGE FERTIG (1915 -1983) was born in Alberta and moved to Vancouver in 1941. Fertig's creative passion began at age twenty with photography during the Depression. He travelled to Mexico in the '40s, where he met Diego Rivera, and in the '50s, American artist Morris Graves became a friend and important influence. Known as the "Moon Man,"; George Fertig was an artist's artist, and his unique oil paintings have found no duplication in Canada. His paintings range from early landscapes, large and powerful archetypal images in the '50s and '60s, to small numinous meditations on eternity in the '70s and '80s. His paintings were rarely exhibited in galleries and today are coveted in private collections. Carl Jung was one of his biggest influences. The 3rd book in The Unheralded Artists of BC series will be on The Life & Art of George Fertig by Mona Fertig, published in time for his retrospective at the Burnaby Art Gallery in June 1 - July 11th, 2010.
JACK HARDMAN (1923 -1996) was born in New Westminster and studied art in Western Washington and at UBC. He married BC poet Marya Fiamengo in the '50s and together they had a son. A sculptor and a printmaker, he was an assistant to Cubist sculptor Alexander Archipenko in 1957. He was the first president of the Burnaby Art Society. Hardman taught many art students in Burnaby in the '60s, and from the mid '70s through the '80s he was the Director of the Burnaby Art Gallery. His work is represented in the National Gallery of Canada. His friends included artists Joe Plaskett, Jim Willer, Joy Zemel Long, David Marshall and Peter Paul Ochs. He lived in Burnaby where he died in 1996. He is featured in the 2nd book in the Unheralded Artists of BC.
LEROY JENSEN (1927-2005) spent his childhood in China, Japan and Vancouver and studied painting at the Royal Academy of Copenhagen and under the French cubist André LHote in Paris. In 1954 he returned to Vancouver to paint and forged a friendship with fellow artists, Jock Hearn, David Marshall, Herbert Siebner and Peter Aspell. He was a founding member of Greenpeace and later a member of the Victoria-based Limner group. In 1982 he moved to Salt Spring Island with his family, where he fought for social environmental causes and continued to paint the human condition, especially women, until his death in 2005. His work is at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the Burnaby Art Gallery.
DAVID MARSHALL (1928 -2006) was born in Alberta, and studied at the VSA, the Heatherly School of Fine Art in London and began exhibiting in Vancouver in 1950. Henry Moore, who became a friend and inspiration during his studies in London in 1954, was one of many formal influences. He was a founding member of the Sculptors' Society of B.C. and organized many international sculpture symposiums around the world. He taught sculpture at Capilano College 1973-1990. He continued working and exhibiting until his death at age 77 in Vancouver. Marshall left behind a legacy in marble, bronze and wood that has no equal in Canada. One of his large sculptures can be found at the Van Dusen Gardens. The first book in Mother Tongue Publishing's series on "The Unheralded Artists of BC"; is The Life & Art of David Marshall by Monika Ullmann.
FRANK MOLNAR (1936 -) fled from Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and went to the USA where he studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1962 he headed for Vancouver to forge his artistic destiny as a painter. There he met artists David Marshall, Peter Aspell, Georg Schmerholz, Elek Imredy and Jack Akroyd. In 1969 he became one of the first art teachers at Capilano College and taught life drawing and artistic anatomy for almost 30 years. His students included Charles van Sandwyk, Cori Creed, Andrew McDermott & Will Rafuse. Today he continues to paint and lives in Vancouver with his wife Sylvia. He is featured in the 2nd book on The Unheralded Artists of BC.
PETER PAUL OCHS (1931-1994) was born in East Prussia and came to Canada in 1952. He studied in Paris at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere under internationally renowned sculptor Ossip Zadkine (1956), and in Hamburg under Hans Ruwoldt (1957). Ochs exhibited in the first outdoor exhibition of BC sculpture at UBC, the Vancouver Art Gallery, at the Seattle Art Museum (1959), the National Gallery of Canada (1964) and was a founding member of the Sculptors' Society of B.C. He was the recipient of a Canada Council Award in 1965. Among his many important installations is the "Story of Raven"; at the British Columbia Museum, Victoria, and B.C. He spent his final years commuting between Greece, Vancouver and Gibsons, British Columbia, working primarily on watercolours and small sculptures. He died in 1994.
J. DELISLE PARKER (1884- 1962) was born in New York City, and moved to England with his family at the age of nine. He was brought up near Stratford-on-Avon, where his father was American Consul in Birmingham and London. Parker was interested in theatre, and also studied art at the Croydon Art School. He studied art in Paris for five years in a number of schools including the Sorbonne and the Academie Julien, notably under Jean-Paul Laurens. He also studied in New York under Robert Henri. He wrote for the McGill News between 1931 and 1934, also illustrating his articles, before moving to Vancouver in 1934. From 1940 to 1959 Parker wrote an arts column for the Vancouver Province under the pseudonym of Palette. He was a founding member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. Lawren Harris wrote an introduction to Parker's 1951 exhibition catalogue, lauding Parker's work and referring to him as "a poet in paint", in addition to recommending that the public invest in Parker's work.
MILDRED VALLEY THORNTON (1890-1967) Born in Dresden, Ontario in 1890, she moved with her family to Regina in 1913 and became interested in the Plains Indians. She began to paint professionally in the 1920s, painting portraits of more than 300 aboriginal people. In response to the Depression, she came with her family to Vancouver in 1934. Having attended Olivet College in Michigan, the Ontario School of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, she wrote for the Vancouver Sun as an art critic from 1944 to 1959. Thornton was inducted into the Royal Society of Arts in 1954 and became president of the Canadian Women's Press Club, but she could never attain her greatest wish: to have the government of Canada accept her donation of her work en masse. She died in 1967, at age 77. Embittered by the lack of official support for her art, she had a codicil in her will that requested all her paintings should be burned to ashes after her death. This codicil was not acted upon on the grounds that it had not been legally witnessed. The collection was saved but it has been mostly sold piecemeal. In 2011 Mother Tongue Publishing will publish The Life & Art of Mildred Valley Thornton by Sheryl Salloum.
JACK WISE (1928-1996) made significant contributions to Canadian art but he will be best remembered for his connection to the "Pacific North West School" tradition that includes Mark Tobey and Morris Graves, amongst others. The artist immigrated to Canada's West Coast in 1963 and tried his hand at homesteading. It didn't work and he soon returned to making a highly personal and spiritually based art that investigates archetypal images. Throughout the 1970s and 1980's Wise continued to paint, study and teach, including posts at the University of California, Victoria College of Art and the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts. Wise's work is found in many public collections in Canada and the most comprehensive holdings are found at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, which owns more than 30 main paintings including the Dorje series.
-- Source: Mona Fertig, press release for art sale, Saltsping Island, November, 2009
JACK AKROYD (1921-1996) was born in Halifax, England. In 1947, he immigrated to Ontario to work as a machinist. It only took 18 months before he quit the CNR job to enroll at the Ontario College of Art in 1949. After graduating, in 1953, Jack moved to the West Coast, taking on various jobs. Jack worked full-time job as a draftsman with a Vancouver consulting engineering firm. He sketched and painted in spare time and between jobs. In 1961, he lived in Kitsilano and declared himself a freelance artist. Jack is quoted as saying "I figured if I could generate $100 per month, I could make it."; As not many of his early works sold, Jack supported himself by helping local sculptors. While Jack remained comparatively unknown on the West Coast, his work has been sought after in Japan as well as in Canada.
UNITY BAINBRIDGE (1916-) O.B.C. V.S.A. studied at the Vancouver School of Art and graduated in 1936. Her portrait was one of a number drawn by E.J. Hughes that was reproduced in the 1936 Graduation issue of Behind The Palette. During the 1930s she travelled alone through the interior of British Columbia, up and down the coast and across to Vancouver Island for the sole purpose of painting the native people in their own environment. Her subjects include squatters' shacks, Japanese and native villages, and portraits. She published two books; "The Lullaby of Lillooet" and "Songs of Seton". An art teacher and author, Bainbridge received the Order of British Columbia in 1993 and a Queen's Jubilee medal. Her work is at the VAG and in many private collections. She lives in West Vancouver, British Columbia.
GORDON CARUSO (1923 -2004) was a British Columbian painter in the abstract tradition. He and his contemporaries, such as Gordon Smith and Peter Aspell, set the direction for many B.C. artists. Caruso was also a powerful teacher and communicator who influenced many artists during his substantial teaching career. Many pieces of Caruso's art can be read as a reaction to his Second World War service in The Special Service Force. Caruso has exhibited in major North American galleries, and his work is in numerous private and corporate collections. He taught at the University of B.C., Simon Fraser University, Vancouver School of Art and Vancouver's Langara College. His final studio was on Salt Spring Island where he continued to create his mixed media sculptural collages.
GEORGE FERTIG (1915 -1983) was born in Alberta and moved to Vancouver in 1941. Fertig's creative passion began at age twenty with photography during the Depression. He travelled to Mexico in the '40s, where he met Diego Rivera, and in the '50s, American artist Morris Graves became a friend and important influence. Known as the "Moon Man,"; George Fertig was an artist's artist, and his unique oil paintings have found no duplication in Canada. His paintings range from early landscapes, large and powerful archetypal images in the '50s and '60s, to small numinous meditations on eternity in the '70s and '80s. His paintings were rarely exhibited in galleries and today are coveted in private collections. Carl Jung was one of his biggest influences. The 3rd book in The Unheralded Artists of BC series will be on The Life & Art of George Fertig by Mona Fertig, published in time for his retrospective at the Burnaby Art Gallery in June 1 - July 11th, 2010.
JACK HARDMAN (1923 -1996) was born in New Westminster and studied art in Western Washington and at UBC. He married BC poet Marya Fiamengo in the '50s and together they had a son. A sculptor and a printmaker, he was an assistant to Cubist sculptor Alexander Archipenko in 1957. He was the first president of the Burnaby Art Society. Hardman taught many art students in Burnaby in the '60s, and from the mid '70s through the '80s he was the Director of the Burnaby Art Gallery. His work is represented in the National Gallery of Canada. His friends included artists Joe Plaskett, Jim Willer, Joy Zemel Long, David Marshall and Peter Paul Ochs. He lived in Burnaby where he died in 1996. He is featured in the 2nd book in the Unheralded Artists of BC.
LEROY JENSEN (1927-2005) spent his childhood in China, Japan and Vancouver and studied painting at the Royal Academy of Copenhagen and under the French cubist André LHote in Paris. In 1954 he returned to Vancouver to paint and forged a friendship with fellow artists, Jock Hearn, David Marshall, Herbert Siebner and Peter Aspell. He was a founding member of Greenpeace and later a member of the Victoria-based Limner group. In 1982 he moved to Salt Spring Island with his family, where he fought for social environmental causes and continued to paint the human condition, especially women, until his death in 2005. His work is at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the Burnaby Art Gallery.
DAVID MARSHALL (1928 -2006) was born in Alberta, and studied at the VSA, the Heatherly School of Fine Art in London and began exhibiting in Vancouver in 1950. Henry Moore, who became a friend and inspiration during his studies in London in 1954, was one of many formal influences. He was a founding member of the Sculptors' Society of B.C. and organized many international sculpture symposiums around the world. He taught sculpture at Capilano College 1973-1990. He continued working and exhibiting until his death at age 77 in Vancouver. Marshall left behind a legacy in marble, bronze and wood that has no equal in Canada. One of his large sculptures can be found at the Van Dusen Gardens. The first book in Mother Tongue Publishing's series on "The Unheralded Artists of BC"; is The Life & Art of David Marshall by Monika Ullmann.
FRANK MOLNAR (1936 -) fled from Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and went to the USA where he studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1962 he headed for Vancouver to forge his artistic destiny as a painter. There he met artists David Marshall, Peter Aspell, Georg Schmerholz, Elek Imredy and Jack Akroyd. In 1969 he became one of the first art teachers at Capilano College and taught life drawing and artistic anatomy for almost 30 years. His students included Charles van Sandwyk, Cori Creed, Andrew McDermott & Will Rafuse. Today he continues to paint and lives in Vancouver with his wife Sylvia. He is featured in the 2nd book on The Unheralded Artists of BC.
PETER PAUL OCHS (1931-1994) was born in East Prussia and came to Canada in 1952. He studied in Paris at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere under internationally renowned sculptor Ossip Zadkine (1956), and in Hamburg under Hans Ruwoldt (1957). Ochs exhibited in the first outdoor exhibition of BC sculpture at UBC, the Vancouver Art Gallery, at the Seattle Art Museum (1959), the National Gallery of Canada (1964) and was a founding member of the Sculptors' Society of B.C. He was the recipient of a Canada Council Award in 1965. Among his many important installations is the "Story of Raven"; at the British Columbia Museum, Victoria, and B.C. He spent his final years commuting between Greece, Vancouver and Gibsons, British Columbia, working primarily on watercolours and small sculptures. He died in 1994.
J. DELISLE PARKER (1884- 1962) was born in New York City, and moved to England with his family at the age of nine. He was brought up near Stratford-on-Avon, where his father was American Consul in Birmingham and London. Parker was interested in theatre, and also studied art at the Croydon Art School. He studied art in Paris for five years in a number of schools including the Sorbonne and the Academie Julien, notably under Jean-Paul Laurens. He also studied in New York under Robert Henri. He wrote for the McGill News between 1931 and 1934, also illustrating his articles, before moving to Vancouver in 1934. From 1940 to 1959 Parker wrote an arts column for the Vancouver Province under the pseudonym of Palette. He was a founding member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. Lawren Harris wrote an introduction to Parker's 1951 exhibition catalogue, lauding Parker's work and referring to him as "a poet in paint", in addition to recommending that the public invest in Parker's work.
MILDRED VALLEY THORNTON (1890-1967) Born in Dresden, Ontario in 1890, she moved with her family to Regina in 1913 and became interested in the Plains Indians. She began to paint professionally in the 1920s, painting portraits of more than 300 aboriginal people. In response to the Depression, she came with her family to Vancouver in 1934. Having attended Olivet College in Michigan, the Ontario School of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, she wrote for the Vancouver Sun as an art critic from 1944 to 1959. Thornton was inducted into the Royal Society of Arts in 1954 and became president of the Canadian Women's Press Club, but she could never attain her greatest wish: to have the government of Canada accept her donation of her work en masse. She died in 1967, at age 77. Embittered by the lack of official support for her art, she had a codicil in her will that requested all her paintings should be burned to ashes after her death. This codicil was not acted upon on the grounds that it had not been legally witnessed. The collection was saved but it has been mostly sold piecemeal. In 2011 Mother Tongue Publishing will publish The Life & Art of Mildred Valley Thornton by Sheryl Salloum.
JACK WISE (1928-1996) made significant contributions to Canadian art but he will be best remembered for his connection to the "Pacific North West School" tradition that includes Mark Tobey and Morris Graves, amongst others. The artist immigrated to Canada's West Coast in 1963 and tried his hand at homesteading. It didn't work and he soon returned to making a highly personal and spiritually based art that investigates archetypal images. Throughout the 1970s and 1980's Wise continued to paint, study and teach, including posts at the University of California, Victoria College of Art and the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts. Wise's work is found in many public collections in Canada and the most comprehensive holdings are found at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, which owns more than 30 main paintings including the Dorje series.
-- Source: Mona Fertig, press release for art sale, Saltsping Island, November, 2009
Submitted on November 16, 2009 in By David.
