alex colville

This morning I was lucky enough to catch a radio interview Shelagh Rogers had with the 86 year old Canadian painter Alex Colville in Halifax. He is arguably the most famous living painter in Canada today, one of the great Maritime magic realists, and still a lively and fascinating interviewee.

Any Canadian with an interest in art is well acquainted with this painting, 1954's Horse and Train. It is an incredibly haunting image, unforgettable and with deeply existential overtones. But did you know how tiny it actually is? Its value per square inch must be astronomical, especially after his less celebrated Soldier and Girl At Station sold for $663,750 at auction last year. Horse and Train was inspired by a poem published in 1949 by the South African writer Roy Campbell. The poem includes the lines: "Against a regiment I oppose a brain / And a dark horse against an armoured train."

Seven years ago, at the age of 80, Colville painted a nude self-portrait called Studio that created a bit of a stir. It took me awhile to track down the image online but finally found it here (page 4). I was delighted to see that, as an octegenarian, he's still got it. It also reminded me of my favourite studio art instructor at UVic. Glenn Howarth always challenged us in our life drawing classes, regularly bringing in nude models as disparate as his nine-months pregnant girlfriend, an almost emaciated young man, two lazy Golden Retrievers and, best of all, a woman in her sixties or seventies who he sat in an old dentist's chair. I even still have have the drawing I did that day. Howarth was a fantastic teacher, the best I had at university (and, interestingly, the one with the fewest academic qualifications). If I still lived in Victoria I would so be taking drawing classes with him.