Harold Town
Harold Town (1924-1990) - Biography
Harold Town was one of the most widely exhibited abstract artists in Canada. He is best known as a founding member of the Painters Eleven, having coined the term for this artistic group himself. The name refers to the eleven Abstract Expressionist artists who banded together in Toronto between 1953 and 1960: Tom Hodgson, Jack Bush, William Ronald, Alexandra Luke, Oscar Cahén, Jock MacDonald, Ray Mead, Hortense Gordon, Walter Yarwood, Kazuo Nakamura and, of course, Harold Town.
Harold Town attended the Ontario College of Art and graduated in 1945. Preceeding his career in painting, Harold Town had an established career as a commercial illustrator. He was employed by ad agencies and magazines such as Macleans, Mayfair and the Imperial Oil Review. Under the instruction and encouragement of his artistic mentors, Oscar Cahén and Albert Franck, Harold Town began to create and exhibit his artwork. He drew his inspiration from visiting cultural institutions in Toronto, such as the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Ontario Museum.
It was ultimately Harold Town's skill as a printmaker that garnered him the recognition he deserved. He developed a form of monotype in 1953, which he called "single autographic prints" (or SAPs). Each SAP was an original and unique work of art that revealed his true skill in printmaking. Harold Town would create vivid colours and shapes through overlaying inks, sometimes using art materials to add dimension and texture to his pieces. His SAPs were discovered by the National Gallery of Canada, who requested to have Harold Town represent Canada in the 28th Venice Biennale in 1956.
Harold Town's participation in the Painters Eleven also helped to bring his artwork to the centrefold of the Canadian art scene. The group's first exhibition took place at the Roberts Gallery in Toronto in 1954. Their efforts helped popularize the new style of Abstract Expressionism, which was slowly edging its way into Canada in the late 1950's from New York. By 1960, Harold Town's career took off as he became internationally recognized for his monumental compositions and unpredictable use of acid colours. His talent and dedication to art was shown through his ability to work with a variety of materials, colours and subject matters in sculpture, printmaking, drawing and painting. He continued painting up until a few months before his untimely death from cancer in 1990 at the age of 60.
"He was a celebrity in Canada, quick-witted, quotable, funny, and delightfully unpredictable. He wrote with wicked virtuosity, and had opinions on everything. His bigger-than-life presence permeated Toronto at the time...Town moved from one medium and studio to another with casual ease, and what I again noted particularly, having spent a lot of time dropping in, was that he had, more than any other artist I know, an ability simply to dive into his work without a second of hesitation. With tools always at the ready, his mind sprinting off the start line, his eye unerring, and his hand capable of extraordinary dexterity, he worked with a wolfish sort of glee" - David P. Silcox, Executor for the Estate of Harold Town
Major Exhibitions:
March 1954, Painters Eleven, Roberts Gallery, Toronto. Inaugural Painters Eleven group exhibition. Subsequent annual Painters Eleven shows, 1955, 1956, 1957 with catalogue, 1958, 1958–59 circulated by National Gallery of Canada.
Prints, Picture Loan Society, Toronto. First solo print show; second print show at this gallery, 1956.
October 1955, One Man Show: Recent Colour Print Collages, Helene Arthur Upstairs Gallery, Toronto. Subsequent solo shows at this gallery (under new name, Mazelow Gallery), 1966, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975.
1956
June–October 1956, 28th Venice Biennale, Louis Archambault, Jack Shadbolt, Harold Town.
January 1957, Harold Town, Gallery of Contemporary Art, Toronto. First solo painting exhibition.
March 1957, Autographic Prints by Harold Town, Galerie L’Actuelle, Montreal.
July–September 1957, 2nd Ljubljana International Print Biennale, Yugoslavia. Town receives award; represented here subsequently, 1959, 1961, 1963.
July–November 1957, Milan Triennale.
September–December 1957, 4th Bienal de São Paulo. Town wins the Arno Prize.
October 1958, Two Canadian Painters: Paul-Émile Borduas and Harold Town, Arthur Tooth & Sons Gallery, London, England.
January–February 1959, Town Collages, Jordan Gallery, Toronto. Catalogue; essay by Robert Fulford.
October–November 1960, Salon d’automne: Kazuo Nakamura and Harold Town, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
January 1962, Harold Town, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery.
April–May 1962, Harold Town: New Paintings, Collages, Drawings, Jerrold Morris International Gallery, Toronto. Subsequent exhibitions at this gallery, 1964, with catalogue, essay by Elizabeth Kilbourn; 1966; 1967, with catalogue, essay by Jerrold Morris; 1969.
October–November 1962, Art of the Americas, Trabia-Morris Gallery, New York.
November 1962–January 1963, Town, Andrew-Morris Gallery, New York.
December 1962, Harold Town, Galerie Dresdnere, Montreal. Subsequent show at this gallery, 1964.
March 1963, Town: An Exhibition of Recent Paintings of the Theme of “The Tyranny of the Corner,” Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ.
November–December 1963, 1st Bienal Americana de Grabado, Santiago. Canadian section (curated by Kay Fenwick) wins Grand Award for best national representation; Town wins Second Purchase Award.
March 1964, Harold Town Retrospective: 80 Drawings, Jerrold Morris International Gallery, Toronto. Catalogue; essay by Elizabeth Kilbourn.
June–October 1964, 32nd Venice Biennale, Harold Town and Elza Mayhew.
October–November 1964, Thirteen Paintings by Harold Town, Vancouver Art Gallery.
October–November 1964, Harold Town Paintings, Bonino Gallery, New York.
January–February 1966, Harold Town, Sears Vincent Price Gallery, Chicago. Subsequent shows at this gallery, 1967, 1968, 1969.
May 1966, Exhibition of Autographic Prints and Drawings in Brush, Pen and Ink, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery.
January 1967, Harold Town Paintings, Scarborough College, University of Toronto.
January 1969, Harold Town: Enigmas, Hart House, University of Toronto.
February 1970, Retrospective Drawing Exhibition, Art Gallery of Windsor.
May–June 1973, Harold Town: The First Exhibition of New Work, 1969–1973, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; curator Kay Reid. Catalogue; essay by David P. Silcox. Toured Ontario.
Indications: Harold Town, 1944–1975; Paintings, Collage, Drawings, Prints, Sculpture, Art Gallery of Windsor; curator Ted Fraser.
September–October 1980, Poets and Other People: Drawings by Harold Town, Art Gallery of Windsor. Catalogue; essay by Robert Fulford.
1986
May 1986, Harold Town: A Retrospective, Art Gallery of Ontario. Book-form catalogue by David Burnett.
June–September 1987, Town: Works on Paper, 1952–1987, Canada House Cultural Centre Gallery, London, England. Travelled to Centre culturel canadien, Paris, December
1987–January 1988; Koffler Gallery, Toronto, December 1989. Catalogue; essay by David Burnett.
November 1997, Magnificent Decade: The Art of Harold Town, 1955–1965, Moore Gallery, Toronto. Catalogue.
November 1997, Harold Town, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa. Exhibition of items from the Town fonds, acquired by the National Archives.
Artist Specialization: A provocative and prolific painter and printmaker, co-founder of the Painters Eleven group, Town worked simultaneously in a wide range of techniques throughout his long career (painting, drawing, prints, collage and assembly), and infused them with his characteristic ingenuity, fertile imagination and technical virtuosity. As the journalist and cultural critic Robert Fulford noted: “He always pursued parallel careers, as though he was convinced that the world deserved several Harold Towns at once.”
