Coal Harbour, looking up the Inlet; and Coal Harbour, looking South. Two hand-coloured etchings from page 306 of the September, 1884 issue of The West Shore magazine. These two lithographs originally appeared in black and white, and they are likely based on period photographs.
I can almost make out the name “A. Burr” in the bottom left hand corner, perhaps the artist who etched the image? Following on the heals of yesterday’s post, these hand-coloured etchings are also from the Vancouver Archives documentary art collection.
This particular issue of The West Shore is significant, as Major Matthews describes in Early Vancouver Volume 5:
The earliest appearance we have seen of the name “Vancouver” is in the magazine West Shore, published in Portland, Oregon, September 1884, Vol. 10, No. 9, page 304, which says: “investigate the merits of Vancouver on Coal Harbor,” etc.”
I let the cat out of the bag yesterday, briefly mentioning The West Shore before realizing that I had the wrong publication. Yesterday’s post was from Canadian Illustrated News.
I will be featuring more from The West Shore in the near future, and I hope to digitize the microfilm of all the British Columbia specific issues, as there are at least half a dozen of them. It was an amazing publication which featured spectacular colour pullout lithographs in many of their issues. I asked the Oregon Historical Society if they had plans to digitize their collection of The West Shore in colour, but as of yet they do not. I believe this is a significant early publication that deserves much more attention. As a teaser, here is the first issue I’ve digitized (September, 1884), which you can conveniently review on your iPad in PDF format.
View of Moody, Dietz, & Nelson’s Saw-mill, at Burrard Inlet, a hand-coloured etching from a photograph by D. Withrow, believed to be published in the West Shore magazine, circa 1884 (I have yet to determine exactly which issue it is from). Oh, correction; this might actually be from Canadian Illustrated News, published in Montreal, Quebec by George Desbarats from 1869 to 1883. The Library and Archives Canada has a picture of this same etching which it dates as 22 June 1872, vol.V, no. 25, 389. The first and last complete issue of Canadian Illustrated News can be viewed online here:
This hand-coloured print is from the Vancouver Archives documentary art collection.
I recently posted the Project 200 brochure on flickr, the often discussed freeway and urban development that almost wiped out Chinatown. Gordon Price has mentioned it on many occasions; here in 2008 he agrees with John Atkin who states it was not only outspoken public opposition that ended the project; they also ran out of financing options, and the feds walked away with the money.
What I find most amusing about this photo is ironic juxtaposition between the iconic landmarks of the Woodward’s building, the Dominion Building, and the Marine Building, and the giant blocks of Lego architecture that look like badly designed hotels of the 70s. Never mind the fact that no one would have dared to imagine Woodward’s would no longer be in business some 30 years later…or that it would one day become the vibrant redevelopment that it is today. I’ll add another footnote to the story tomorrow.
Hastings Wharf, Vancouver, a watercolour by Thomas Mower Martin, RCA. From the book Canada, described by Wilfred Campbell LL.D. and published by A&C Black Ltd. London. 1907, still publishing today! Print (page from the book) offered for sale on ebay. T. Mower Martin lived from 1838-1934; a listing of 134 of his paintings that sold at auction Saturday, October 27, 1883 is available at archive.org. The portrait of him at his desk is from the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, AB, where they have a complete fonds dedicated to him. It looks like this fonds was acquired as a gift of John Harbert in 2003, with thanks to the Michael H. Dunn Trust, 2011. Here’s an excerpt from the biography they have posted:
Thomas Mower Martin, 1838-1934, was born in London, England and received art training at a number of institutions. He and his wife, Emma Nichols, 1842-1911 moved to Toronto, Ontario in 1862. He painted mostly landscapes, animals in action, still lifes and some portraits and traveled widely throughout North America. In 1887 he made his first trip to Western Canada under the sponsorship of the Canadian Pacific Railway and returned approximately ten times. A collection of articles entitled “Canada from an Artist’s Point of View” (1895) details some of his activities in the west. Martin was a founding member of the Ontario Society of Artists in 1872 and was director of the Ontario Government Art school from 1877 to 1879. He was also a founder of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1880…
Westward Ho! Magazine cover by S.P. Judge, from the May, 1908 issue (cover image tweaked by me). This issue was originally scanned by Archive.org from the collection of Robarts U of T Library and paid for with money from Microsoft. His early Vancouver ‘portfolio/scrapbook’ is outstanding, located in the S.P. Judge fonds at the UBC Special Collections. From Gary Sim’s British Columbia Artists:
Spencer Perceval Judge was one of the “wave” of trained English artists who emigrated to Canada around 1900 and settled in Vancouver. He became a major influence on the growth of art in Vancouver, as an artist, a teacher, a founder of art groups - especially the B.C. Society of Fine Arts, and as an author on art and crafts instruction.
He was born in Surbiton, England, and arrived in Vancouver in 1902 with his family. He was a founding member of the Vancouver Studio Club, and was one of its art teachers.
Judge exhibited in Vancouver, starting at least as early as 1903 in a group exhibition with T.W. Fripp and James Blomfield…
Judge advertised in Westward Ho! magazine for his School of Art in 1907, with a by-line noting that he was “certificated South Kensington, London, Eng.”…
Empress of Japan II leaving Vancouver by Ronald Threlkeld Jackson (1902 - 1992), an oil painting from 1935. As I mentioned before, Ron Jackson also did commercial illustration work for the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Tourist Association. This painting was sold by Heffel Fine Art Auction House on May 10, 2000 for $10,925, well over the estimate of $6,000 - 8,000 CAD, showing romantic steamships and cityscapes can come at a premium!
The Romance of Vancouver, a BC Electric trolley advertisement for the Vancouver Sun by cartoonist Fraser Wilson. I digitally enhanced this image, removing the brown ‘cardboard’ patina of the background to replicate what the original drawing might have looked like on paper. Wilson’s signature appears in the bottom right of the ad, and in the bottom left are the words:
José María Narváez
(1791) Discovers Vancouver
Wikipedia entry for José María Narváez
Fraser Wilson, mentioned here recently, was the cartoonist who sold his first cartoon at the age of 12 (circa 1917), and he continued to draw comics for the Vancouver Sun and the Daily Province until 1947. This trolley ad is one of the three referenced in this Vancouver Sun article, where John Mackie writes:
They probably date to the late 1930s and early ’40s, when posters were mounted on the front of streetcars. They survived because somebody packed them into walls as insulation and they were unearthed when houses were renovated or torn down.
The expression “The Romance of Vancouver” was a slogan used by the Vancouver Tourist Association on a number of occasions. Books were published with this title in 1926, 1929, 1936 (the year of the city’s Golden Jubilee), and in 1940. I wonder if this ad was part of a larger Golden Jubilee nostalgic ad campaign featuring all the early explorers; has anyone seen any others?
I’m putting out the call for anyone who has an old BCER trolley poster in their collection to get in touch with me. I’d love to build a larger visual database of these ads, and if possible, I’m attempting to make digital recreations of the posters I’ve seen thus far. Of course, you can read a lot of these ads in period photographs, but I’m super keen on seeing the real thing. You can get in touch with me by Twitter or via this site at illustratedvancouver.ca/submit. You can see my growing digital archive of this posters here.
Another Vancouver harbour scene by artist Walter J. Phillips, this time in colour, and from 1933, showing a mountainous background, cargo ship docked at grain elevator, and workers on the dock. The above watercolour sold at auction for $38,000, according to this Winnipeg auction house website (image is slightly cropped, and colours may be a bit off; the tweaked image comes from the aforementioned webpage).
A Vancouver harbour scene from 1941 by W. J. Phillips, showing workers loading / unloading ships on the Vancouver dock. This watercolour is printed on page 187 of the book Canada, The Foundations of its Future by Stephen Leacock. It would be nice to see this in colour, so if anyone knows where this painting is, let me know!
Walter J. Phillips (Walter Joseph, ASA, RCA, CSPWC - 1884-1963) was a celebrated Manitoba artist who on occasion, painted in British Columbia.
Union Steamship Cardena by James Koll, 2011. 14”x20”, watercolour. Shown here entering First Narrows, the S.S. Cardena began service for the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia in 1923 and soon earned its reputation as finest in the fleet. It reliably served the coastal communities of the Inside Passage until it was retired in 1958. This original painting has sold, but a giclée print limited to a series of 75 is available from the artist.
On a related note, I’m still trying to track down where the watercolours by S P Judge have gone. Sadly, I’ve run into a bit of a dead end. I’ve spoken with Gerald Rushton’s grandson, and he does recall some steamship fine art that his grandfather may have owned, but doesn’t believe it remained with the family.
So a word to all art dealers; be on the lookout for a series of watercolours of the early Union Steamship fleet circa 1905, signed by S P Judge. They hung on the walls of the company’s boardroom, and were later acquired by Gerald Rushton, who wrote the book on Union Steamship twice. If we can’t track them down, let’s keep painting steamships! This fine example by James Koll should serve as an inspiration.
Swan and the Bear, 2011 by artist Ola Volo. This submission is also somewhat of a scoop, as Ola writes:
Inspired by the collision of wild life and urban life in Vancouver, this piece is going to be featured on TransLink Buses and Skytrains as of February 2012.
So watch for the swan and the bear, coming to a bus near you! Thanks for the submission, Ola!
Another unique artistic aerial view of the city, this time from DC Bucholtz. There have been a few vintage maps in the past that turn the aerial perspective on it’s head, and they’re quite refreshing to look at. The map was sponsored by CKNW, The Pop Shoppe, and The Province Newspaper, among other sponsors. It was published by Cornwall Publishing Co., and Chuck Davis was the editor. This was pre-Expo, as you can see the Expo site is simply indicated with a flag and a large circle, so I’m guessing it was drawn some time around 1983 or 1984, since the Seabus colour scheme was no longer orange in 1985. I also just noticed the map shows Cambie Bridge as the old truss swing span bridge (the new bridge was built 1984-85), so that reinforces it would most likely be circa 1983.
A busy afternoon at Granville and Hastings, from The Vancouver Sunday Sun, July 18, 1920. I believe the drawing is by Ernest LeMessurier who was a UBC grad in 1916, working as a cartoonist in Vancouver in 1920, later to become a cartoonist for the Montreal Star, an English-language Canadian newspaper (which eventually folded in 1979 following an eight-month pressmen’s strike; the Star’s building, presses, and archives were acquired by The Gazette).
I like the fact that a sandwich board is employed to sell cheap land here, a man advertises a baseball game from a horse or donkey, and a tourist is lost in the centre of the street, looking for the Lions! Also, if you pay close attention, we are still driving on the wrong side of the road, (we switched Jan 1st, 1922) and a policeman directs traffic as there are no traffic lights; the first one was installed in 1928! Aside from a few small changes (like the changing of the flags atop the Sinclair Centre), the scene still looks pretty much the same as it does today!
Souvenir Program from The Jubilee Show, a musical extravaganza held in July of 1946 for the city’s Diamond Jubilee. The artist responsible for the cover art is H. Edwards.
I found some media coverage which mentions the show in this issue of the Jewish Western Bulletin, a newspaper whose masthead bears a striking resemblance to that of Illustrated Vancouver!! Uncanny!
I also spotted a copy of this program for sale at Antiquarius books, a bookstore that was previously located in the Dominion Building in downtown Vancouver, now solely selling books on the Internet (situated in Falkland, BC). They got the date wrong though, presuming it was from the Golden Jubilee in 1936 instead of the Diamond Jubilee of 1946.
Cross-posted with additional text to VancouverIsAwesome.com
