From the Collection
Kenneth Lochhead

November 14, 2008

On Campus News celebrates the University of Saskatchewan art collection. Begun in 1911, the collection comprises more than 4,400 objects, including many important examples from various artists and eras. OCN asked Kent Archer, director of the collection, to select and discuss the works in this series.

Kenneth Lochhead studied at Queen’s University, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Barnes Foundation as well as in England, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and western Canada. He was appointed director of the School of Art at the Regina Campus (then an affiliate college of the University of Saskatchewan) in 1950 where he also guided the development of what later became the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery.

At this time, Lochhead developed his distinctive early style, producing such notable works as The Kite (1952), The Dignitary, and The Bonspiel (1954). In 1964, he accepted a teaching position with the University of Manitoba and later taught at York University and the University of Ottawa. His work has been exhibited internationally and is represented in many collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Lochhead’s role in the creation of the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops attracted international attention to the prairie region. In 1960, works by Lochhead and his colleagues Ronald Bloore, Art McKay, Ted Godwin, and Doug Morton formed a major exhibition entitled The Regina Five. The exhibition toured nationally, and brought attention to Regina and to other artists working there, notably the architect Clifford Wiens and the painter Roy Kiyooka.

The donated painting shown here – Grope Colour – is representative of Lochhead’s work while he lived in the prairie region, and therefore forms a compelling document of a catalytic chapter in Saskatchewan’s and the university’s cultural history. It is a solid, late example of the ‘L’ and ‘stem’ series from 1964-74 which earned Lochhead the reputation as one of Canada’s best-known colour-field painters. Though Grope Colour is a later work, executed as Lochhead was complicating his compositional motifs and moving increasingly into his sets of sprayed series, it admirably represents this pivotal and rich period in his career.

Artist:	Kenneth Lochhead
Title:	Grope Colour
Dimensions:	170 X 335 cm
Media:	Acrylic on canvas
Date:	1974
Credit:	University of Saskatchewan Art Collection, acquired from artist 1978