Art Exhibit
From the Official Souvenir Program, p. 151:
In art there are 125 noted paintings of the 19th and 20th centuries by American and Canadian artists on display at the Washington State Pavilion. Canada’s alone is a $4 million exhibit. All of the paintings are on loan and have been gathered for Expo by noted San Francisco art critic Dr. Alfred Frankenstein.
From Official Souvenir Program, p. 65:
EXPO ‘74 TO FEATURE UNUSUAL ART EXHIBIT
One of the most unusual art exhibits of recent times - bringing together prominent Canadian, Hawaiian, and mainland U.S. painters - is being held during the Expo ‘74 World’s Fair.
Some of Canada’s best-known painters are represented in a special section of the $4 million exhibition. Another separate section features works by contemporary artists from Hawaii.
Village in the Laurentian (1924) by Clarence Gagnon.
“I believe this is the first time that either group has been represented as a group in a major American exhibition,” said Dr. Alfred Frankenstein, San Francisco art critic and columnist who is making the selection of some 125 paintings.
The exhibition also includes a large section of major paintings by American artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Included are works by Grandma Moses, Charles Russel and Frederic Remington. Artists of the “Hudson River” and “Ash Can” schools are also represented.
The exhibit is being sponsored by Seattle First National Bank, which also funded the $210,000 art gallery which will remain permanently in the Washington State Pavilion when the World’s Fair is over.
Subjects of the paintings range from the stark wilderness of arctic and sub-arctic Canada to the softly colored landscapes of Hawaii. Many of the paintings celebrate the wild scenery of the unspoiled Canadian and American Northwest.
The titles of Paul Kane’s paintings have been somewhat misunderstood or bowdlerized by the Expo ‘74 program. The title of this painting is not “Scout Dance of the Spokane Indians” but “Scalp Dance, Colville.” Similarly, the other painting alluded to is not titled “Mt. Hood with Spokane Indians” but “Chinook Indians in front of Mt. Hood.”
Prominent of among the Canadian artists represented are four members of the “Group of Seven” who portrayed the wild country of arctic Canada in the early part of the 20th century. Lawrun Harris’s “Bylot Island,” A. Y. Jackson’s “Algoma,” Tom Tomson’s “Northern River” and “Snow in October,” and J.E.H. (Jock) MacDonald’s “Autumn in Algoma” represent the Canadian North.
Eastern Canada artists who “fell in love with the scenery of the St. Laurence River,” said Frankenstein, are represented in the exhibition by Maurice Cullen (“Valley of the Devil River”), J. A. Fraser (“Laurentian Splendor”) and Clarence Gagnon (“Village in the Laurentians”).
Western Canada is represented by Emily Carr of Vancouver, and her paintings “Big Raven” and “Skidgate Pole.”
Another interesting aspect of the Expo ‘74 Exhibition is the inclusion of works by Americans who painted Canadian scenes and those by Canadians who painted American material.
One of the earliest views ever recorded of the area around Spokane is Canadian Paul Kane’s “Mt. Hood with Spokane Indians,” painted about 1845. Another Kane painting, “Scout Dance of the Spokane Indians” is also included in the exhibition.
David Milne, a Canadian who lived in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, is represented by “Boston Corner,” and Robert Whale, a Canadian who painted New York scenes in the early 19th century, is represented by “Canada Southern Railroad at Niagara Falls.” The painting is part of a separate section on the falls showing both the Canadian and American sides.
All of the Canadian paintings are being loaned by the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa except those by Emily Carr, whose paintings are on loan from the Art Gallery of Vancouver.
Among the paintings from Hawaii are Tadashi Sato’s “Reflections Three” from the Hawaii Foundation on Culture and the Arts, and “Sea Change” and “ShadowPlay” by Ben Norris and “Away and Over” and “Journey in Autumn” by Tseng Yu-ho, from the artists’ personal collections.
The Honolulu Advertiser Gallery of Contemporary Hawaiian Art is sending several paintings: “Nothing Left to Do, Nothing Left to See,” a satiric view of island tourists by Mike Cantrell, Russell Davidson’s “Beach Walk” and “Cathedral",” a cloud study by John Wisnowsky. A painting from the Honolulu Academy of Arts Museum, “Hillside Farm” by Isami Doi, is also included in the selection.
