The celebrated Canadian artist Alex Colville painted on primed wooden panels, but his work with wood extended beyond his meticulous pieces of realist art. Using modest pine or repurposed material, Colville often built his own easels and studio furniture, a self-sufficiency which reflected his efficiency, thriftiness and exactitude. The shelves of his cabinets were made at precisely the height and depth to suit the items he needed to store. A tall drafting table was specifically intended for a person of his own height when standing.
He even made his own frames and packing cases for his paintings.
Colville’s private processes and particularity will now be on display to the public. The family of the late artist announced Sunday it would gift the contents of his studio in Wolfville, N.S., to Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., to be permanently housed at Colville House on campus.
As well, the Owens Art Gallery, which holds more than 200 Colville artworks and which is also on the Mount Allison campus, has officially dedicated one of its spaces as the Colville Gallery, which will provide year-round access to the man’s paintings, including the newly restored 1960 mural Athletes.
“There was very little sign of excess and very little sense of waste,” the gallery’s director Gemey Kelly told The Globe and Mail.
“The objects in the studio material reflect his orderliness, his precision and his intentionality.”
Colville graduated from Mount Allison with a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1942. After the Second World War, in 1946, he took up a position at the university.
He lived in and raised a family on campus (in what would later be named Colville House) from 1949 to 1973.
In 1973, Colville and his family moved from Sackville to his wife’s family home in Wolfville, where he lived and painted until his death in 2013. Since then his studio there was kept as he left it.
The contents (including ink, paints, hand tools and a drawing board made from an old peg solitaire game) will be transported to Colville House, where the studio will be recreated and installed on the main floor.
Colville House is currently open during summer months only. The studio is scheduled to open on July 1, 2017.