Open Collections

Carl Schaefer, the paintings of the 1930’s

University of British Columbia

Carl Schaefer is a Canadian painter who has worked in Toronto and southwestern Ontario since the late twenties. His style developed from the landscape tradition established by the Group of Seven; yet he evolved a distinct style in the thirties, largely affected by the medium of watercolour and a personal approach to a familiar countryside. This thesis, entitled Carl Schaefer: the Paintings of the 1930's, is a study of Carl Schaefer's work and the artistic environment in which he painted during the decade of the 1930's as a means of showing the development of what is considered his mature style and of establishing him as one of the distinguished painters of the period. Though now singled out for their importance in a retrospective view of the 1930's, Carl Schaefer's paintings warrant a more thorough study. This thesis intends, in Chapter I to trace his early development, bringing in his background and early art training, the influence of his teachers, several of whom were members of the Group of Seven, of his contemporaries and of those artists whom he both admired and felt a sympathy for. Chapter II examines the milieu in which Carl Schaefer worked by following critical reaction to exhibitions and to artistic trends in Canada (with an emphasis on Ontario). The landscapes and still lifes of the thirties are the subjects of Chapters III and IV. Here, selected works have been studied as a means of tracing his style from the early works until 1940. Chapter V looks at critical reaction during the 1930's to Carl Schaefer's work in order to establish his place among his contemporaries. The existing material, that is to say, paintings, prints and drawings, exhibition catalogues, histories of Canadian art, letters, a taped interview, a monograph and periodical articles (with particular emphasis here on those written during the 1930's) have been studied as the background for this thesis.

Text

2010-03-17

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21978

Fine Arts

University of British Columbia

Graduate