J. Fenwick Lansdowne
with contributions by Robert Genn, Tristram Lansdowne and others
Pomegranate Communications, Portland Ore., pp. 184 $65.
Throughout his long life, Fenwick Lansdowne worked on Victoria Avenue in Oak Bay. He rose to fame as a teenage prodigy and subsequently he has been widely published as the supreme illustrator of bird life.
Books based on his paintings have properly focused on the birds. Now, with the arrival of J. Fenwick Lansdowne just released by Pomegranate Editions, we can begin to take the measure of the man.
With more than 160 full-page, full-colour reproductions, you will be able to give these brilliant paintings the time they require. Drawn from his entire oeuvre, each presents his exacting observations of bird anatomy, markings and posture.
This beautifully chosen selection of watercolours evokes admiration of Lansdowne’s rare skill with brush and his genius for composition. Note Lansdowne’s phenomenal patience in rendering the shoots and branches upon which so many of the birds sit. Each bud is alive with modest and perfect observation. One’s admiration for this quiet artist just grows and grows.
In addition to excellent illustrations, the publisher has gathered memoirs of the artist that add up to an excellent character study. Artist Robert Genn tells of rambling about the south Island as teenagers, bird-watching and wise-cracking: “Fen’s mother, Edith, drove us to various locations around Victoria: Cattle Point, Clover Point, Cadboro Bay, the foot of Bowker Avenue, Blenkinsop Lake, Esquimalt Lagoon… Fen sat up front in their 1948 Ford, while I had the back seat to myself.
“It was always just the three of us.”
Robert McCracken Peck puts Lansdowne’s accomplishment in perspective, from Audubon to the present. And Tristram Lansdowne, the artist’s son and an artist himself, takes us home to meet his famous father. His comments about his father’s choice of media, gradually shifting from gouache to watercolour, are welcome.
I won’t go into Lansdowne’s impressive exhibiting history. In Toronto, Bud Feheley’s Gallery was Lansdowne’s business address and the two formed a lifelong bond, resulting in the eight-year commission he undertook to paint the endangered birds of China (1991-1999). This project resulted in 32 stunning paintings that were reproduced in facsimile in Vienna. Exhibitions of the originals were held in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, London, New York and San Diego, as well as in Victoria.
Ars longa vita brevis: in Victoria we can regularly see his original sketches and watercolours at Winchester Galleries, who are the agent for his estate. And with the new book in hand, at last we are able to consider Lansdowne’s work in depth and realize once again that our local art is of the very highest standard.
Robert Amos writes on art for the Times Colonist.
