Back in 2018, I received from a friend this art print by Louis Crout, one of the early pioneers of Malaspina Printers. Itâs a large print on 22x30 watercolour paper, I think dated around the late 70s, possibly a bit faded, Iâm not sure. Itâs an edition of 50, this is # 17, and itâs called Beautiful City (1), three views of Vancouver. I wondered if he did a triptych, so I asked him be email. He wrote:
It was one of three screen prints in the series. The first I have no copy or image of; the second and third I have slides of only and will be happy to send you a copy of the slide, hopefully in the next days. (I believe the Burnaby Art Gallery has a copy but not sure)
These three views were quite popular at the time they were made in the late 70âs and sold quite well. At the time I was also working a lot with still life formats, and as you can see from this view, was quite inspired by Japanese art.
I moved to Toronto about 1980 and worked for a while at the Open Studio here. Although I can only consider myself a part-time artist Iâve continued with an interest in printmaking, mostly in the medium of Japanese Woodblock printing. After Open Studio, Iâve done no more screen printing and this technique, with the toxic materials and solvents of the time, is now almost gone as an artists medium in Canada I think.
Recently Iâve completed a woodblock series depicting hockey fights and currently, in the absence of those beautiful Vancouver views, Iâm working with images of boats and birds on water.
I still have a lot to learn in this woodblock technique.
We visited Vancouver a couple of years ago in March/April and had a beautiful walk through the blossoming Cherry trees on a street in East Vancouver - with Mount Baker visible in the distance.
He wrote a followup not long after:
Itâs interesting to see how the colours of your Vancouver print held up. It must have been well taken care of.
I used a clear ink base and powdered artists pigments to make the transparent colours for all of my prints so that might have helped as well.
For sure you must know Vancouver better than I remember it. Itâs a while but I lived a couple of blocks west of Commercial Drive in the 70âs. Canât remember the street.
At least the two views youâve seen were views from 2 of the windows in that location. I lived in three or four locations while in Vancouver. My family home was in South Vancouver (long gone).
Unfortunately I have no prints from my time in Vancouver, though I do have some of the original drawings. A brother in BC has some of the Vancouver prints.
I had a very good relationship with a Gallery on 4th or Broadway (name forgotten!). The owner of that gallery bought a large number of the edition of which you have a copy and made me feel quite successful at the time. I sold quite a few prints through the Equinox Gallery as well.
I met a fellow student at the then, Vancouver School of Art. She and two instructors from the school were the founding members of Malaspina. I might have been one of the first few members to join after them and the initial studio was at the Burnaby Arts Centre. We lost that space after a few years and moved to a location on Pender Street near Victory Square. After I left Vancouver, Malaspina moved again to itâs current location on Granville Island.
It was a pretty important time and was a great opportunity for me and Iâm still in touch with a couple of people from that era.
We all did a lot of work getting those workshops set-up and operating. My claim to fame was doing the outside signs for both of the first two locations!
Itâs fascinating to think that Paul Goranson lived until 2002. At first glance, I assumed the Coal Harbour print was a woodblock rather than a lino-cut. Very skilful and inspiring! EJ Hughes has long been a favourite as well.
For no good reason, this post remained as a draft...for YEARS! I think I was intending to save it for Cherry Blossom season, now that the cherry blossoms have once again come to full bloom, I really must post this before I am forced to wait another year to publish this post!