Kenneth Lochhead; one of Canada's foremost modernist artists (Globe and Mail)
Hyfler/Rosner
KENNETH LOCHHEAD, ARTIST AND EDUCATOR 1926-2006
One of Canada's foremost modernist artists, he discovered abstract
expressionism while studying in the United States and brought it home,
writes SANDRA MARTIN. Later, he was one of the leaders of the Regina 5
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A prolific painter, Kenneth Lochhead was a member of the trail-blazing
Regina 5, a group of Prairie artists in the early 1960s who
experimented with abstract expressionism.
"He brought modernism to Canada," said critic and broadcaster Robert
Enright, who was on the Canada Council jury that awarded Mr. Lochhead a
Governor-General's Award in visual and media arts in 2006. "His
importance was in three signally and equally significant ways: as a
painter himself, as an educator and as a cultural figure who was
interested in the dynamic of what a culture is and what comes into its
frame of reference."
First and foremost, though, he was a "very fine painter" who had
"voracious eyes," according to Mr. Enright. "He was always looking at
other art and, because of that, he was always, in the best sense,
susceptible to influence, but he always made it his own. His signature
was always on it."
Artist Ron Bloore, another member of the Regina 5, lauded Mr.
Lochhead's elegant "twist of the wrist" as a painter. The paintings Mr.
Bloore likes the best are Mr. Lochhead's bird series. "They were good;
I wish I had one," he said of these whimsical, seemingly humorous
paintings with strange menacing creatures creeping in from one of the
corners. "They are the most fascinating thing he did because they are
intriguing in the multiplicity of emotional content, i.e. the dark
corners."
Mr. Lochhead, who had been a champion figure skater in his youth, was
an obsessive Ottawa Senators fan. Artist Arthur McKay, another member
of the Regina 5, liked to tell a story about dropping in with some
friends and a case of beer at Mr. Lochhead's house on a Saturday night
to watch the hockey game, according to David Silcox, president of
Sotheby's Canada. They found Mr. Lochhead already glued to the
television set, all geared up with a Senator's sweater and a pair of
skates. "The odd thing was," Mr. McKay claimed, "he was wearing figure
skates."
He also had a great sense of humour. "He always looked at the sunny
side," said his wife, Joanne. "There was a dark side, but it wasn't
dominant as it is in so many artists. As Ken said, 'You can't have the
light if you don't have the shadows."
Kenneth Campbell Lochhead, the younger son of Allan Grant and Helen
Louise (née Van Wart) Lochhead, grew up in Ottawa. His parents had met
in Leipzig, Germany, before the First World War when Allan Lochhead (a
graduate of McGill University) was studying for a PhD in microbiology
and Ms. Van Wart (a graduate of the University of New Brunswick) was
studying piano and voice. She was able to return home when war was
declared, but he was interned as an enemy alien for more than four
years. They corresponded, met again in Canada and were married in 1919.
The Lochheads lived in the Glebe area of Ottawa near the Experimental
Farm where Dr. Grant worked as a senior scientist for the Department of
Agriculture. Mrs. Grant taught piano and raised their two sons.
Eventually, Doug, the older son, became a distinguished poet, literary
critic and professor of English literature, and Ken an equally
distinguished painter, teacher and cultural influence. The brothers
collaborated when Ken made line drawings to illustrate a volume of
Doug's poems.
Young Ken followed his brother to Glebe Collegiate Institute, where he
was a somewhat less-than-stellar student. When his grandmother asked
how he was doing in school, he replied, according to a family story,
that he really hated Latin and would much rather do art. Let the boy
drop Latin and take art, she advised his parents. They agreed, and Ken
finished his high-school education at Ottawa Technical School. "Ken
wanted to paint, and he had the support of my parents, which was
important because most of us were going off to university," said Doug
Lochhead.Before he graduated from OTS in 1944, Mr. Lochhead's art
teacher told him to collect brochures from all the art schools in the
United States, then apply to the one that offered the most in bursaries
and scholarships. That's how he ended up, after a summer-school art
course at Queen's University in Kingston, as a scholarship student at
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and its affiliate,
the Barnes Foundation in nearby Merion. During his three academic years
(1946-1949) in Philadelphia, he met abstract expressionist artist
Barnett Newman and influential art critic and curator Clement
Greenberg, two men who would be inspirational in his painting career.
After graduating, he worked briefly at Carleton University before
moving west to Regina to become director of the School of Arts at the
University of Saskatchewan in 1950 and the administrator of what became
the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery. A gangly 24-year-old, he looked more
like a student than a curator and administrator. Within a year, he had
married Patricia Poole, one of his art students. They eventually had
two sons and a daughter.
A couple of years later, Mr. Lochhead came up with the idea of
organizing summer workshops for professional artists and holding them
at Emma Lake, where the university owned property. The Emma Lake
workshops were a way of building a community of artists, breaking up
the isolation that some artists experienced in Regina, forming bonds
with the larger art world and invigorating their own work by exposing
it to the influence and criticism of outside artists and critics. The
first workshop was held in August of 1955 with a grant of $450 from the
Saskatchewan Arts Board. Jack Shadbolt of Vancouver was the guest
artist.
This was the heyday of abstract expressionism in the U.S., and Mr.
Lochhead brought it to Regina by inviting such New York artists as
Herman Cherry, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland and Jules Olitski to Emma
Lake. His connections and his ability to attract big American artists
focused attention on the work being done in Regina. At the same time,
he was developing his own distinctive style with works such as The Kite
(1952), The Dignitary and The Bonspiel (1954) and abstract works such
as Blue Extension and Dark Green Centre (1963).
He was also beginning to win major commissions, including an enormous
wall mural at Gander airport that he executed in 1957-58. "It's
fantastic," said Mr. Bloore. "It was one of the really great things he
did." Mr. Bloore first saw the mural after a 14-hour flight from Europe
via Iceland. "It's humorous, it's light, it's bright, it's cheerful,
it's a very welcoming sight after flying over the North Atlantic in a
four-engine plane."
When he was director of the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Mr. Bloore
organized a show of seven Regina artists that was picked up (minus two
of them) by the National Gallery in Ottawa in 1961. The artists -- Doug
Morton, Ted Godwin, Mr. Bloore, Mr. McKay and Mr. Lochhead -- became
known as the Regina 5 simply because they were all making innovative
art in Regina at that time. The Regina 5 would not exhibit together
again for 20 years until an enthusiast organized Regina 5 Exhibition
No. 2 in Creemore, Ont., in 1981.Much has been made of Mr. Lochhead's
invitation to the hugely influential Clement Greenberg as visiting
critic at the Emma Lake workshops the following year. Some have rashly
condemned Mr. Greenberg's pronouncements as cultural imperialism.
That's not to suggest, though, that Mr. Greenberg's influence on Mr.
Lochhead was negligible. Mr. Lochhead did embrace colour field
painting, especially in his huge, gorgeously hued spray paintings.
David Silcox prefers to think that Mr. Lochhead was "inspired" by Mr.
Greenberg. "He responded to the idea of being really ambitious and of
taking a lot of risks in painting. I think in that decade of the 1960s
that Ken Lochhead was like the national seismograph of the Canadian art
world. He was the one who was pointing the direction in a way that few
others were."
What is more significant is that Mr. Lochhead kept evolving over the
course of his long painting career, from figurative to abstract to
whimsical representation. He never fell into a formula. As an artist,
he loved paint in its different viscosities and palettes, from oil to
acrylic to water colour. He never experimented with other forms such as
sculpture or film; he was a painterly painter from start to finish.
"Every single one of his different styles was beautifully painted,"
said Stratford, Ont., painter Tony Urquhart. "Of the Regina 5, I would
say he was, not necessarily the best artist, but the best painter."
Mr. Lochhead left Regina in 1964 to become a professor of painting in
Winnipeg with the School of Art. He received the Order of Canada in
1971, about the time his first marriage began to crumble. Two years
later, he married Joanne Bryers, an arts educator whom he'd met at the
Winnipeg Art Gallery. They eventually had three daughters. With his new
wife, he moved from Winnipeg to Toronto, where he taught for two years
at York University before accepting an appointment in the Department of
Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa in 1975. He retired in 1990.
Mr. Lochhead had a charmed life, said Joanne. "He always felt really,
really fortunate because he was able to spend his life doing what he
loved to do. He couldn't make a living painting, but he certainly made
a living teaching and then, when he retired in 1990, he was able to
devote himself totally to painting."
He built a studio in Gatineau, Que., where the family had a cottage,
and he spent the last 15 years going up there every day and painting. A
little more than three years ago, Mr. Lochhead was diagnosed with
colorectal cancer. Despite ongoing treatment, he went to his studio
every day until 18 months ago. Then he set up a studio in his house and
continued to paint until February, when he became too weak to stand at
the easel.
With hospice help, his wife cared for him at home, which was what he
wanted. His family was with him until the end, when he murmured: "I've
gotta go. Enjoy every second."
Kenneth Campbell Lochhead
was born in Ottawa on May 22,
1926. He died in Ottawa of
colorectal cancer on July 15, 2006.
He was 80. He is survived by his
wife, Joanne, and their three
daughters; his former wife,
Patricia, and their two sons and
a daughter; eight grandchildren;
and his brother Douglas.