Lowrie Warrener (January 29, 1900 – February 2, 1983) was a Canadian painter who was a pioneer of modernism, along with Kathleen Munn and Bertram Brooker.[1]
Lowrie Warrener | |
|---|---|
| Born | Lowrie Lyle Warrener January 29, 1900 Sarnia, Ontario |
| Died | February 8, 1983 (aged 83) Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Education | Ontario College of Art, Toronto (1921–1924); Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Antwerp (1924); Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris (1924). |
Biography
editWarrener was inspired to begin painting when he met Arthur Lismer at a 1920 exhibition hosted by the Sarnia Women’s Conservation Committee at the Sarnia Carnegie Library. He was initially influenced by the Group of Seven`s colour and style.[2] In 1921, he left Sarnia for Toronto to attend the Ontario College of Art, to study sculpture and painting.[2]
Upon graduation, in 1945, he travelled to Europe, going to Antwerp to study at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts (with a letter of introduction from his teacher, Arthur Lismer, who had studied there).[3] In 1924, he also worked at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, an open studio.[4]
About 1925, he discovered the book Art by Clive Bell (1914) and read it with enthusiasm.[4] He wrote about reading it to a fellow-student at the Ontario College of Art, Carl Schaefer, in letters that are today in Ottawa in the Library and Archives Canada, in the Carl Schaefer Papers, MG 30 D-171.[4] In these letters, he stressed the necessity in painting for strong design, the solid and three-dimensional.[4] He told Schaefer to use figures as designs and turn everything into a form you can take hold of. He advised to put in the colour the shape suggested and forget about whether a thing looks natural.[4]
When he returned to Canada in 1925, he proved he had taken to heart the lesson of art abroad. His work was in a flat-patterned, decorative landscape style.[3] Among other characteristics, he used strong colour and a red contour line. As a result, he was asked to be a contributor to the Group of Seven's 1926 exhibition, a signal honour. In 1926, Warrener had an exhibition of his own at the Sarnia Carnegie Library and sold 25 paintings.[2] It too was considered a triumph.
In the years from 1926 to 1934, Warrener`s abstracted work, perhaps under the influence of Lawren Harris, became dark and simplified into blocky semi-geometric shapes, as in Solitude (Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa), painted by Warrener in 1929.[2][4]
In 1930, Warrener became a set designer for avant-garde theatre, even writing a play to put on with one by play-wright and teacher Herman Voaden. Warrener intended the play to combine drama, music and pantomime.[4]
Warrener painted sporadically in the years which followed. In 2009, Cassandra Getty at the Art Gallery of Windsor curated the show, Kathleen Munn and Lowrie Warrener: The Logic of Nature, the Romance of Space.[5]
When Warrener was eighty-two, he spoke of his lack of knowledge when he chose to paint abstractly.[4] He said that he did not know what abstract was. He simply chose colour that he liked and filled space. He called what he painted an abstract impression of colour.[4] However, in the period 1925–1930, along with Kathleen Munn, who knew about Paul Cézanne, and Bertram Brooker who combined simple geometric forms with differently coloured planes in his work, he was a pioneer of Canadian modernism.
Public Collections
edit- Canadian War Museum, Ottawa[6]
- Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown[7]
- Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery, Sarnia[2]
- McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg[8]
- National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa[9]
- The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa[10]
References
edit- ^ Murray 1994, p. 9-11,20-22.
- ^ a b c d e Dobson, Cathy. "Sarnia's Lowrie Warrener an Important Painter". www.sarniahistoricalsociety.com. Sarnia Historical Society. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
- ^ a b Nasgaard 2008, p. 28.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Murray, Joan (1999). Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century. Toronto: Dundurn. pp. 44–46. ISBN 1550023322.
- ^ Getty, Cassandra. "Kathleen Munn and Lowrie Warrener: The Logic of Nature, the Romance of Space". www.agw.ca. Art Gallery of Windsor, January 17-February 15, 2009. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
- ^ Warrener, Lowrie. "Beat the Promise". www.warmuseum.ca. Canadian War Museum. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
- ^ Gopnik, Blake. "Lowrie Warrener, Canadian Treasure–Eh?". news.artnet.com. ArtNet News. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
- ^ "Lowrie Warrener, 1900 - 1983". www.fecklesscollection.ca. Feckless Collection. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
- ^ "Lowrie Warrener". National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
- ^ Warrener, Lowrie (1930). "Bull Pines, Okanagan, B.C." Robert McLaughlin Gallery. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
Further reading
edit- Getty, Cassandra (2010). The Logic of Nature, the Romance of Space: Elements of Canadian Modernist Painting. Windsor, Oshawa: Art Gallery of Windsor, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery. Retrieved June 27, 2020.
- Murray, Joan (1994). Origins of Abstraction in Canada: Modernist Pioneers. Oshawa: Robert McLaughlin Gallery. Retrieved June 26, 2020.
- Nasgaard, Roald (2008). Abstract painting in Canada. Vancouver: Douglas & MacIntyre. ISBN 978-1-55365-226-7. OCLC 72262120.
- Schaefer, Carl (n.d.). Carl Schaefer Retrospective Exhibition: Paintings from 1926 to 1969. Montreal. Retrieved November 24, 2020.