ROSEMARIE TOVELL: CURATOR TOUR / TALK

Sunday, July 19, 4:30 p.m.

Free


Throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Canadian painter David Milne (1882-1953) invented and subsequently mastered the colour drypoint technique, a form of printmaking that involves drawing directly onto the printing surface (or matrix). Despite Milne’s stunning successes in the medium—or perhaps because of them—his discoveries were never adopted by other artists during his lifetime. Seeing some of these works in a major retrospective of Milne’s prints in 1980, Ontario artist John Hartman was inspired to revive his precursor’s almost forgotten technique. Using Milne’s innovations as a starting point, Hartman evolved his own unique approach to the medium, producing a compelling body of work that is at once contemporary and traditional.

Curator Rosemarie Tovell was responsible for the first print retrospective that brought Milne’s revolutionary drypoints to Hartman’s attention in 1980. Fittingly, Tovell recently curated Invention and Revival: The Colour Drypoints of David Milne and John Hartman, a two-person exhibition that examines the affinities and contrasts between these two acclaimed artists. In her talk, Tovell will take us on a tour of this beautiful exhibition, showing how both artists used their explorations in the drypoint medium as an important testing ground for ideas that were subsequently incorporated into their paintings. The tour will also reveal the degree to which Hartman has been drawn to Milne’s work on a thematic as well as a technical level.

Rosemarie Tovell is former Curator of Prints at the National Gallery of Canada and a leading authority on the work of David Milne.


Burnaby Art Gallery
6344 Deer Lake Avenue
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5G 2J3
Tue.—Fri. 10 a.m.—4:30 p.m., Sat. & Sun. 12—5 p.m.
Closed Mondays

Tel: (604) 297-4422
Fax: (604) 205-7339

E-mail: gallery@burnaby.ca

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