Ken Tolmie
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Ken Tolmie graduated from Mount Allison University with a BFA in 1962. After early experiments with surrealism, conducted while he was travelling and living in England and Spain in the mid 1960s, he returned to Canada and began to develop a realist style. Living and working in Ottawa for a decade, where his work was shown at The Wells, Lofthouse and Wallack Galleries, as well as the National Gallery of Canada, he decided to undertake a long series with a sociological focus, capturing a part of Canadian life which had rarely been explored visually. The result was the Bridgetown Series, a series of over 500 works to date, which occupied the artist for more than twenty-five years and first necessitated the development of his own gallery. He moved to the Nova Scotia village of Bridgetown and chronicled its small-town life in paintings: local people, farms, domestic scenes, animals. As such, the series is a visual record of a small agricultural community of a kind now rendered extinct by the pressures of globalization. The Bridgetown Series participated in a documentary trend in Canadian art of the 70s and 80s dedicated to memorializing regional consciousness; it is a visual analogue to the fiction of Alice Munroe or Margaret Lawrence, although the artistic vocabulary it draws on is American, the tradition of Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper. Many works in this series are featured in A Rural Life, published by Oberon Press in 1986, and the series was featured on CBC and TVO several times throughout the 80s. The Owens Art Gallery of Mount Allison University and National Museums Canada sponsored a trans-Canada touring show of the series 1982-84. During his residence in Nova Scotia, Ken Tolmie was active in the artistic and cultural affairs of the province, serving on the Board of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, assisting in founding the James House Museum in Bridgetown, and donating many of his works to cultural and medical causes. Ken Tolmie now lives in Toronto and operates a large studio, gallery, and film production space located amidst a number of major Toronto art galleries. He is currently working on his Window Series, works making use of a wide range of techniques, perspectives, and images, and dealing with the urban experience. The paintings from the first decade of this series are held in private, public, and corporate collections across Canada and the United States, and in Europe and Japan. He owns the Tolmie Gallery in Toronto, first established in Nova Scotia in 1976, and Tolmie Productions, created in 1998 to develop, produce, and market the documentary and feature films that he is making. He has received support from the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation. Documentary Films on Ken Tolmie: 1983, “The Massive Mirror”, TVOntario, for the series Visions: The Critical Eye - a half-hour documentary including Ken Tolmie’s work and views. 1982, “The human Link”,TVOntario, for the series Visions: Artists and the Creative Process - a half-hour documentary on Ken Tolmie, Joe Fafard, and Esther Warkov. 1981, Nova Scotia As It Is, CBC-TV - a half-hour documentary shown on the national network, containing a five-minute interview with Ken Tolmie on the Bridgetown paintings. 1981, The National, CBC-TV, a one-minute forty-second feature on the Bridgetown Series paintings. 1981,"Ken Tolmie,” CBC-TV, for the programs Newsday, Profile, Take Thirty, and View from the Atlantic - a half-hour documentary. 1981, "Profile of Ken Tolmie,” CBC-TV, for the national series Seeing It Our Way- a half-hour documentary. Films by Ken Tolmie: 2002, Executive Producer and Director: Yes, We Do Windows - an 8-minute pilot on the artist’s Window Series, filmed in the Tolmie Gallery and broadcast on CBC’s experimental late-night programme ZeD. 2000, Producer and Director: Painting Hilda. A twenty-four minute documentary supported by the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation. 2000, Executive Producer: It’s for You. Digital feature film directed by Bruno Lazaro Pacheco. Shot, produced, and edited on Tolmie Productions equipment and facilities. Currently circulating at European and Asian film festivals Books by Ken Tolmie: 1986, Author: A Rural Life: An Artist’s Portrait (Ottawa: Oberon Press). Contains 60 colour plates of paintings from the artist’s Bridgetown Series. 1974, Author and Illustrator: Tale of an Egg (Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1974). Selected by the National Library of Canada as one of the ten best Canadian children’s books. Awards: 1999, Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation Selected public, corporate and private collections: The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Selected Exhibitions: 2001-present Tolmie Gallery, Toronto, ON Permanent exhibition of Tolmie’s Window Series 1996 Lunenburg Art Gallery, Lunenburg, NS Solo exhibition 1996 Zwickers Gallery, Halifax, NS Solo exhibition 1977-1996 Tolmie Gallery, Bridgetown, NS and Mahone Bay, NS Annual Summer Exhibition 1995 Sackville Art Association and Owens Gallery, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB Group exhibition 1995 North of the Border (Group exhibition) Wiregrass Museum of Art, Alabama, USA 1988 Kaspar Gallery, Toronto, ON Solo exhibition 1986 Beckett Gallery, Hamilton, ON Solo exhibition 1982 - 1984 Ken Tolmie: The Bridgetown Series (Touring solo exhibition sponsored by the Owens Art Gallery and National Museums of Canada) Originating Gallery: Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB 10 May-15 June 1982 1982 Midwest Watercolour Society, 6th Annual Juried Exhibition (Group exhibition) West Bend Gallery, West Bend, IL, USA 1981 1979 The Graphic Connection (Touring group exhibition) Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, NS 1978 Four Artists (Group exhibition) Zwickers Gallery, Halifax, NS 1975 Paintings by Ken Tolmie (Solo exhibition) Wells Gallery, Ottawa, ON 1974 1973 1972 Paintings by Ken Tolmie (Solo exhibition) Wallack Galleries, Ottawa, ON 1966 Canadian Watercolours, Drawings and Prints (Group exhibition) National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON 1964 Magic Realism in Canadian Painting(Group exhibition) Public Library and Art Museum, London, ON 1964 Canadian Watercolours, Drawings and Prints (Group exhibition) National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON 1963 1962 The Art of Ken Tolmie (Solo exhibition) Zwickers Gallery, Halifax, NS |
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