Arthur McKay

Arthur Fortescue McKay (September 11, 1926 – August 3, 2000) was a Canadian painter best known as Art McKay, a member of The Regina Five. Many of his works are modernist abstractions.[1]

Arthur McKay
BornSeptember 11, 1926
Nipawin, Saskatchewan, Canada
DiedAugust 3, 2000(2000-08-03) (aged 73)
Squamish, British Columbia, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Occupationpainter, professor

Early life and education

McKay was born in Nipawin, Saskatchewan.[2] His father was Joseph Fortescue McKay, a son of Angus McKay whose own grandfather was the younger John Richards McKay and whose grandmother was Harriet Ballenden. This and other ancestry would qualify McKay as an Anglo-Métis artist in Saskatchewan and in Canada. His mother, Georgina Agnes Newnham, was a daughter of another historical figure in Saskatchewan, the Anglican Bishop of Saskatchewan, Jervois Newnham.

McKay studied at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary, Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris (1949–50), and Columbia University n New York, and The Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania.

Career

In 1952, McKay joined the staff of the Regina Art School.[3] A few years later, while teaching art at the University of Saskatchewan,[4] McKay helped organize a series of Emma Lake Artist's Workshops in rural Saskatchewan.[5] Between 1955 and 1967, McKay received national and international attention as one of the painting group The Regina Five.[6] The group's paintings were exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada in 1961.[7] He was influenced in the 1960s by Barnett Newman,[8] who he and Roy Kiyooka invited to the Emma Lake Artists' Workshop as guest artist.[9]

McKay's best known works are his scraped enamel circular and rectangular "mandalas", which he uses relaxing, contemplative imagery to depict ideas related to Zen Buddhism. McKay was included in Clement Greenberg's 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition.[8] In the 1970s, he continued to paint abstractions but also reintroduced the landscape in his work.

In 1997, the MacKenzie Art Gallery mounted a national travelling exhibition, Arthur F. McKay: A Critical Retrospective. At the exhibition opening, McKay said: "If I had known I was that good, I would have painted more."

McKay died on August 3, 2000 in Squamish, British Columbia at the age of 73.

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References
  1. Bart Gazzola. "Into The Rewild" Archived 2018-02-08 at the Wayback Machine. Planet S. VOL.14 ISSUE. 26
  2. "Godwin reflects on his Regine (Five) Years". Nick Miliokas, Regina Leader-Post. 2009-06-06
  3. J. Russell Harper. Painting in Canada: A History. University of Toronto Press; 1977. ISBN 978-0-8020-6307-6. p. 352–.
  4. Barry Lord. The history of painting in Canada: toward a people's art. NC Press; 1974. ISBN 978-0-919600-12-6. p. 209–210
  5. Lora Senechal Carney. Canadian Painters in a Modern World, 1925-1955: Writings and Reconsiderations. McGill-Queen's University Press; 2017. ISBN 978-0-7735-5115-2. p. 254–.
  6. Canadian Library Journal. Vol. 29-30. Canadian Library Association.; 1972. p. 201.
  7. James M. Pitsula. New World Dawning: The Sixties at Regina Campus. University of Regina Press; 2008. ISBN 978-0-88977-210-6. p. 46–.
  8. "Arthur MacKay". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Archived September 21, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  9. A Companion to American Art. Wiley; 30 January 2015. ISBN 978-1-118-54249-1. p. 302–.
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