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Robert Amos: Readers respond on Island artists

Recently, I wrote about my work in search of the local artists of the past. The resulting column brought more than the usual array of responses, and I will share some of them with you.
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E. J. Hughes, Ferry at Crofton, 1992, watercolour

robertamos.jpgRecently, I wrote about my work in search of the local artists of the past. The resulting column brought more than the usual array of responses, and I will share some of them with you.

I wrote about Thomas Bamford (1861-1946), a talented amateur painter of Victoria. Bruce Davies, curator at Craigdarroch Castle, sent me a photo of a Bamford that shows Oak Bay. The painting has a Dunsmuir family connection, and is thus of interest to the castle. Another writer sent me a picture of a Bamford painting of Chepstow Castle in Wales which interests me — that’s the town in which my wife and I were married.

And Bamford’s great-grandson called me. While on the phone, he counted more than 20 of his great-grandfather’s paintings on the wall.

Another person wrote about his family connection to Mary Riter Hamilton (1873-1954), another of my subjects: “Wow,” he began. “You batted that one out of the park. My grandmother was Mary Riter Hamilton’s patron during the period of the Great War, and then during Mary’s battlefield painting time [between 1919 and 1926]. Mary left a number of her works with my grandmother and, while the artist was away, had my grandmother sell pieces to finance her. As a result, my grandmother bought a number of her paintings, which are still in our family. And, as it happens, my grandmother also collected a number of Bamfords, many of which are in my home today.” The persistence of artwork within a family is a wonderful thing.

A keen reader from Toronto has discovered the “undiscovered” artists of Victoria — of which there are many. He put his request in simple terms: “I am a collector of female Canadian artists. Any ideas of where to get a Hamilton?” Where are the galleries with an interest in local historical art? There is a market waiting to be served.

Even the least-known among my “forgotten artists” showed up. A snow scene by Arthur Checkley (1871-1945) was sold last week at Lund’s Auctions, and a local artist brought over two Checkley etchings, purchased by her mother-in-law years ago. She had always meant to find out about the artist — but where?

Too frequently, I hear of people who, after years of deliberation, take their questions to the art gallery, the archives or the art history department and are met with the equivalent of a blank stare. Local art history is largely unknown.

A thoughtful reader dropped off two books by Howard O’Hagan, with cover art by his wife, Margaret Peterson. O’Hagan (whose papers are, with Peterson’s, held by the University of Victoria’s Special Collections) was the son of a doctor in Jasper. The woman who gave me the books was herself delivered by Dr. O’Hagan. How many degrees of separation is that?

E.J. Hughes (1913-2006) of Shawnigan and Duncan drew the most response. An elderly reader wrote: “I have been an interested reader of your columns for a number of years, although basically uneducated, and particularly illiterate in almost all art. But I have been drawn to E.J. Hughes’s work, perhaps because I was born on the West Coast, worked as a youth on West Coast vessels, and have a great affection for this part of the world.”

He wrote a short reminiscence about Old Baldy Mountain on Shawnigan Lake. “As a boy, with my family, we had spent happy vacations in that very spot.”

My colleague Adrian Chamberlain, a native of Gabriola Island, visited the artist 10 years ago and wrote a touching appreciation of Hughes’s paintings of Taylor Bay and the Malaspina Galleries. He mentioned the way Hughes painted each stone on the beach at Qualicum, as if it were levitating.

A Hughes fan from Vancouver asked for information about the murals Hughes painted with Paul Goranson and Orville Fisher. Following their work at the Malaspina Hotel in Nanaimo, they decorated the B.C. Pavilion for the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco in 1939. The writer said that “the public record of artists’ work and lives can often be abysmal!” His website, illustratedvancouver.ca, is a model of self-directed art history.

And this: “In your article you ask: ‘Have we seen the end of all those boxes of photographs?’ I think we have, and that it is going to be a big problem in the future. A few years ago I digitized all of my pictures, thousands — I am 75. Plus old family photos. I thought it was great. I threw out most of the photo prints (not the old ones) and negatives.

“Then I started looking at all my diaries and reports from my past work, many of which were on floppy disks. I couldn’t access them because the disks weren’t compatible with my computer. The only diaries of any use were my handwritten ones. My point is that I had all this information and the photos because they were hard copies. I think that most likely all my digitized photos will not be available to my future family relatives. Most of my past digitized writing isn’t even available to me!”

But hope springs eternal: “I have two watercolour paintings that I think are rather well done. When I bought them years ago I was told that they thought they had been done by someone ‘up Island.’ Each has been initialled JRS. I would think they would be in the 1920s or ’30s era, but that is just a guess on my part. If by chance you know of any such artist, I would appreciate you letting me know.” Good luck!