Painter of light and local colour subject of new book
December 01, 2011
With his signature style of vibrant colours outlined in
black enamel, Clark McDougall (1921-1980) was equally comfortable painting
urban and rural subjects. After years of painting in relative obscurity in St.
Thomas, Ontario, McDougall garnered national acclaim in the late 1960s and
seventies when regionalism preoccupied much of Canadian culture. Admired by
London artist Greg Curnoe and curators Pierre Théberge and Alvin Balkind,
McDougall increasingly attained critical and commercial success. The Vancouver
Art Gallery mounted a retrospective exhibition in 1977. Henry Luce III,
publisher of Time and Life magazines, was an avid collector of
his paintings.
McDougall’s unique relationship to specific places—for example, St. Thomas, his hometown near London where he live much of his life, or Buffalo, where he visited the American painter Charles Burchfield— is similar to what Guy Debord and the Situationist International were exploring in Paris at the same time. Their approach to constructing a relationship to space based on human interaction, memory and collective histories initiated the study of what they referred to as psychogeography. In 1957, Guy Debord defined psychogeography as “the study of the specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.”[i]
McDougall understood this intuitively. Throughout his career, he approached the topography and histories of the city and surrounding countryside in order to create patterns of continuity and resonance. The resulting genius loci, or sense of place, apparent in his paintings was informed by a historical consciousness that exposed the psychic connectivity of familiar urban and rural landscapes.” [ii] McDougall was, in this sense, a type of flâneur who recognized not only the emergence of the modern city (his paintings of traffic-filled city streets drenched in neon attest to this) but also the swath of destruction left in its path.”[iii] This struggle between past and future, rural and urban, is evident in his portrayal of doomed farmsteads and vanishing streetscapes.
Then there is the way he painted. His characteristic black outlines and saturated colours suggest the intensity with which he approached his subject matter. His anxious desire to delineate and record the fleeting remains of the built environment and his anticipation of its continued demise is revealed in the countless studies he did of the same locations. It was almost as if, by constant observation and keen documentation of familiar locations, he could stop time by constructing a hyper reality based partly on what he so keenly observed and partly on his memory of it.
McIntosh Gallery has long been interested Clark McDougall. Curator Catherine Elliot Shaw has done extensive research on the artist and maintains strong connections with the McDougall family. It was in fact a major gift from the late Mrs. Marion McDougall, Clark’s sister-in-law, of the artist’s archival material, including drawings, unfinished paintings and photographs that provided the impetus for the major exhibition Fugitive Light: Clark McDougall’s Destination Place presented at McIntosh earlier this year.
McIntosh Gallery is hosting a public reception on Sunday December 4th from 2:00 to 4:00 P.M. for the launch of the exhibition catalogue. This beautiful, richly illustrated 80-page hardcover book, the first major publication on the artist in over 25 years, features essays by York University professor Anna Hudson and McIntosh curator Catherine Elliot Shaw. The authors will be available at the launch reception to discuss the McIntosh Gallery’s McDougall project and to sign copies.
Gallery information
 |
 |
