Art Gallery of Hamilton show portrays half century of local art

“The Bigger Picture: Art in Hamilton 1950-2000,” one of the most important shows ever mounted at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, is coming to a close, along with the old year, on Saturday, Dec. 31.

I can’t speak for the year 2022, but the show will not be forgotten.

At the show’s opening in the fall so many who came out were moved to the core.

Yes, many of them were artists represented in the show but just as many, even more, were those who experience the work of our creative community from the sidelines, so to speak, as friends of the arts.

Supporters, collectors, buyers, family, writers, perhaps most important of all, audiences.

“The response of people … some had tears in their eyes,” says artist/gallery owner Bryce Kanbara, one of the show’s organizers, one of the most consistent and stalwart champions of art in this city for almost 60 years.

Some of the emotion arose from the presence in that space of works by artists we’ve lost. It was more than that, though. Much of it was the sheer sweep of the manifold creative composite that is represented on the walls — so many artists, so many impulses. And also the magnitude of the moment, the history and struggle behind it. So much of the feeling was the feeling of familiarity. “Hey, I remember that! I know so and so and such and such and that episode and that piece of art.” It was know-stalgia.

Veteran Hamilton artist Bob Yates, represented in the show by a spectacular environmental piece, says: “The first thing that strikes me about this historic show is the number of artists I was fortunate enough to know as friends who are now dead. Ars longa, vita brevis.

“I can’t help but be thankful for Wayne Allan, Bob Mason, Bill Kidston, George Wallace, Catherine Gibbon, Jim Mullin, John Miecznikowski, Bill Powell, Conrad Furey, Mansaram, Walter Hickling, Trevor Hodgson and others.”

Katherine MacDonald’s “Self-Portrait with Brush,” oil on canvas, is one of the many art works featured in “The Bigger Picture” exhibit at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.Doug Haggo

Says Ravinder Ruprai: “I feel like it (“The Bigger Picture” show) has legitimized my history as an artist in this city.

“I used to work at the AGH. I loved the various positions I held there. It was during some of the gallery’s toughest times and, eventually I lost my job. It was devastating and humiliating. I withdrew from the arts community completely,” but re-emerging as a mature artist some year later, she realized the scene had changed.

“Re-establishing myself has been hard work but very rewarding,” she says. “Artist/curator Bryce Kanbara provided early opportunities to show work at You Me Gallery, for which I am extremely grateful. ‘The Bigger Picture’ exhibition says very clearly, ‘this artist — this South Asian artist (important because there are not a lot of artists of colour represented in this show) — was here, living/working/practicing in Hamilton, adding to the social discourse.’”

Says Michael Allgoewer: “The first Hamilton artist I met was (the late) Doug Carter. It was he who introduced me to the scene.

“Slowly, I began to see how the circles of influence and inspiration spread outward from certain points of commonality, such as the Inc (Hamilton Artists Inc.), McMaster, DVSA (Dundas Valley School of Art), and later the Hammer Gallery.”

In the “ensuing tumultuous years,” he says, he became more and more involved in local arts organization, began to accrue some solo shows, then, as the end of the millennium approached, a solo show at the AGH itself. A coup for a local artist.

“It’s hard to believe that was nearly a quarter of a century ago.” says Allgoewer.

Aside from the work the show affords glimpses at the rich but sometimes terribly troubled history of our arts community and institutions during that period and this too, I think, contribute to the

Through much of that time (1950 to 2000), Hamilton arts were like a tree whose soil was being depleted by the sucking roots of the big black walnut of Toronto and what nutrients remained to our artists kept getting drained away further by the all too frequent indifference to Hamilton artists on the part of some of our very own institutions, including city council and, at times, the AGH itself which in the ‘90s had a reputation among some local artists, justifiable or not, of ignoring them.

I covered the arts in this city for much of the 1990s and early 2000s and continue to do so intermittently now, a great honour, I should add. Back then there were stories about art projects getting cancelled by city hall, funding trimmed back to almost nothing in certain cases, public art juries overruled by council.

It got to a point where artists staged a kind of protest/art moment called “The Big Picture.” Artists, of every stripe, from visual to theatre to music and dance, were invited to gather at the forecourt of city hall to have a group picture taken. Hundreds showed up, and Cees van Gamerden took the shot. An image of it is prominent in the current show, and that event, called “The Big Picture,” inspired the comparator title of this one.

The times may not always be good for the arts — those ones certainly weren’t — but the arts are always good for the times. And there is a fitting irony in the turnaround that has happened since, with the arts turning into one of Hamilton’s great attractions (art crawls and Supercrawl, for instance).

Under Shelley Falconer’s leadership, the AGH has been making great strides toward community inclusion and diversity.

This show, so ably guest curated by Alexis Molina, proves that.

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