John Meredith
John Meredith (1933-2000) - Artist Biography
Born in Stratford, Ontario in 1933, John Meredith enrolled in the Ontario College of Art in 1950 where he studied under Jock Macdonald, Carl Schaefer and Eric Freifeld. His brother William Ronald who also dropped the family name of Smith, had graduated in 1951 but Meredith's course thereafter was entirely his own.
Meredith had little interest in formal theories but worked instinctively and experientially, drawing from inner resources. The majority of his early works of the late 1950s and early 1960s are executed with a vigorous palette-knife impasto. Paul Duval writes of Meredith’s tendency toward this technique: “This encrusted richness of impasto has always held an attraction for young artists, and Meredith continued his affection for it into his vertical, stem-like compositions of the early 1960s.”
The artist’s early paintings typically consist of abstract vertical stripes that are dark and tonal in colour, such as the black, brown and purple bands in “Black Night”. These stripes took on at first botanical references followed by human connotations, projecting a sense of mystery. Meredith’s work was constantly evolving, though consistently informed by a belief in the human presence as the ultimate subject of art.
Throughout the 1960s, Meredith's ink drawings and oil paintings frequently reflect one another as mirror images. The enclosed convoluted forms of such monumental canvases of the period as "Seeker" from 1966 (Art Gallery of Ontario) were born from the improvised calligraphy of his ink drawings. Many of these drawings, while offering valuable source material for future paintings, are also vigorous and complete works of art in themselves. By the 1970s, Meredith's closely woven designs expanded into a series of very open compositions which contrasted his nervous, black calligraphy against free floating areas of brilliant colour.
Permanent Collections:
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto[6]
Art Gallery of Windsor[12]
The Canada Council Collection
MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts[7]
Museum of Modern Art, New York[7]
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa[13]
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa[14]
Vancouver Art Gallery
Selected Exhibitions:
2007 The Varley Art Gallery, Unionville, ON
2005 The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto, ON
University of Toronto Art Centre, Toronto, ON
National Gallery of Canada, Toronto, ON
1992 The McMichael Art Gallery
1988-1987 Queen’s Park, Toronto, ON
1985 Agnes Etherington Centre, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
1984 49th Parallel Gallery, New York, NY
1981 Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, MB
1978 Harbourfront Art Gallery, Toronto, ON
Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, AB
1977 Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC
1976 The Olympic Games, Montreal (Ontario Exhibition)
Dalhousie University Art Gallery, Halifax, NS
1971 National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON
Mabel Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL
1970 Tel Aviv, Isreal
1968 Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
Lugano, Switzerland
Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland
Musée National d’art Modern, Paris, France
1967 Union Carbid Building, New York, NY
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, MB
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, MB
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON
EXPO’ 67 Montreal, PQ
1966 National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON
1965 University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON
Quartrieme Biennial de Paris, Musée d’Art
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON
1963 Detroit Cultural Center, Detroit, MI
Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON
1961 Annual Spring Show, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, PQ
Artist Specialization: Over the course of his career, Meredith became known as one of Canada's most lyricial and original painters. The inner life of his forms, the fluid sense of pictorial rhythm, the brilliant colour combinations, all combine to give his work a compelling power that is singularly individual.
