#2 in the Unheralded Artists of BC series

EVE LAZARUS, CLAUDIA CORNWALL,

WENDY NEWBOLD PATTERSON

Introduction by: Max Wyman

The Unheralded Artists of BC, is a beautiful, lively and well-written series dedicated to introducing many forgotten 20th-century BC artists to the people while recognizing their artistic significance.

Filled with rare art reproductions and artists’ personal photographs, this 2nd book in the series introduces the talent of three BC. artist-mentors who worked and exhibited from the 1950s on in Vancouver, Burnaby, Victoria and Salt Spring Island, yet are known only to a few. Their common bond was their choice not to embrace, chameleon-like, the various artistic trends of the era, but to work passionately towards perfecting their own ‘timeless and individuated styles’. This book honours their important contribution to the BC art scene and tells the untold stories. A must for anyone interested in BC history or Canadian art and politics.

MAX WYMAN is a Vancouver writer and arts policy consultant and one of Canada’s leading cultural commentators. His most recent book, The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters, is a passionate manifesto asserting the importance of arts and culture in Canada. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2001, was Mayor of Lions Bay 2005 – 2008, and was founding chair of the Metro Vancouver Regional Cultural Committee.

Frank Molnar (1936 – ) fled from Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and went to the USA where he studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1962 he headed for Vancouver to forge his artistic destiny as painter. There he met artists David Marshall, Peter Aspell, Georg Schmerholz, Elek Imredy and Jack Akroyd. In 1969 he became one of the fi rst art teachers at Capilano College and taught life drawing and artistic anatomy for almost 30 years. His students included Charles Van Sandwyk, Cori Creed and Will Rafuse. Today he continues to paint and lives in Vancouver with his wife Sylvia.

Jack Hardman (1923–1996) was born in New Westminster and studied art in Western Washington and at UBC. He married BC poet Marya Fiamengo in the 50s and together they had a son. A sculptor and a printmaker, he was an assistant to Cubist sculptor Alexander Archipenko in 1957. Hardman taught many art students in Burnaby in the 60s, and from the mid 70s through the 80s he was the Director of the Burnaby Art Gallery. His friends included artists Joe Plaskett, Jim Willer, Joy Zemel Long, David Marshall and Peter Paul Ochs. He lived in Burnaby where he died in 1996.

LeRoy Jensen (1927– 2005) spent his childhood in China, Japan and Vancouver and studied painting at the Royal Academy of Copenhagen and under the French cubist Andre L’Hote in Paris. In 1954 he returned to Vancouver to paint and forged a friendship with fellow artists Jack Hardman, George Fertig, David Marshall and Peter Aspell. He was a founding member of Greenpeace and later a member of the Victoria-based Limner group. In 1982 he moved to Salt Spring Island with his family, where he fought for social environmental causes and continued to paint the human condition, especially women, until hisdeath in 2005

Authors:

on Frank Molnar:

Eve Lazarus is a business reporter and freelance writer. She has won gold and silver awards for her writing. Her book, At Home with History: the secrets of Greater Vancouver’s heritage houses was a City of Vancouver book award fi nalist in 2008. She lives in North Vancouver.

on Jack Hardman:

Claudia Cornwall’s book, Letter from Vienna: A Daughter Uncovers her Family’s Jewish Past, won the BC Book Prize for best non-fi ction in 1996. She has been published in many Canadian magazines and newspapers. In 2009, she received a $20,000 journalism award from the Canadian Institute of Health Research. She lives in North Vancouver.

on LeRoy Jensen:

Wendy Newbold Patterson attended the University of Colorado and completed her Bachelor of Arts at Vermont College. In 1970 she was a student of LeRoy Jensen’s at the Free University of Vancouver. A painter, she lives in Gray, Maine with her husband, Roy, a sculptor. Her work is in several private collections in North America.

Published: November 2009

ISBN:978-1-896949-02-4

8 x 9.5 | 144 pages | CDN $34.95

Trade paperback with French flaps

95 colour and b&w plates

Category: Biography / Canadian Art

Price: CDN Prices vary depending on shipping. See below to order.