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.
From an article written by Eric Sommer in The Georgia Straight, published by the Vancouver Free Press, February 14-27, 1969. These sketches show something of a comeback for the Vancouver freeway Project 200 that never was. One ambitious firm thought they would try their hand at ‘hiding’ the freeway underground, or perhaps partially underground. Needless to say, I don’t believe this went anywhere, as it no doubt would have been vulnerable to enormous cost overruns while offering very little benefit to the city.
I’m sorry the pictures are such poor quality here. It would be nice to visit the UBC Archives to see the original article in person; perhaps one day I will get the chance. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
City Council will soon consider plans for a new Vancouver freeway that could almost be called a non-freeway.
The new concept is not an ugly concrete span scarring the city skyline; it is not a roaring thunderway through downtown Vancouver; it would not interfere with pedestrian traffic; and it would leave Chinatown intact.
The new concept is explained in a report commissioned by the National Harbors Board and prepared by the local engineering firm of Swan-Wooster and CBA. Although not due for presentation to City Council until early in March, the STRAIGHT has managed to obtain an advance copy of the report.
This report originated as an attempt to find a replacement for the great elevated freeway scheme that collapsed last year under tons of criticism from Vancouver residents. The defeated scheme would have cut a wide swath through Chinatown, introduced true multi-lane ugliness to Vancouver, and might well have initiated the Los Angelization of the city…
The Sign of the Clock, Souvenirs in Gold. Henry Birks & Sons advert, with George E. Trorey acting as managing director. Originally known as the Trorey Clock, it became the Birks clock when Trorey sold his business to Henry Birks and Sons of Montreal in 1906. Advertisement from the August 1907 issue of Western Ho! Magazine, seen on Archive.org.
Continuing from yesterday’s post, Westward Ho! magazine became Man-to-Man magazine in 1910, and then British Columbia Magazine in 1911. The Man-to-Man cover is again drawn by S.P. Judge, and the May 1911 cover of British Columbia Magazine is drawn by R.B. Unsworth. Both covers have been retouched slightly by me. I should add the first cover here has been positively identified as the Hastings Mill, at the foot of Dunlevy Avenue. I’ve written a rather lengthy post about this publication at VancouverIsAwesome.com.
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.”…
A comic by Stuart Morris from the cover of New Directions magazine, Vol 1 No 5 from April-May of 1986. I thought this comic would be suitably fun for Friday the 13th! I was tipped off about New Directions magazine by Bonnie Beckwoman, one of the original contributors of the Georgia Straight who later also contributed comics to New Directions. The lead story of this issue from 1986 was titled The Bad BCers’ Guide to Expo, and it was written by Larry Kuehn. While most of my Expo86 posts have been rosy nostalgic, not everyone was as enthusiastic about the event. You can read the article at the VPL’s periodicals reference desk. Or tweet me!
seeds-n-stems:
(1956) Capilano Suspension Bridge, North Vancouver, B.C.
Painting by James Hill
Another great cover by James Hill, from July 21, 1956, just a few months after this one.
Dominion Bridge advertisement, from the March 1954 issue of the BC Professional Engineer. This artwork is just barely appropriate here, as it is essentially comprised of a retouched photograph, but perhaps just this once I will dedicate this post to the unknown photo retouching artist. The ad provides some interesting documentation of the construction of the current Granville Street bridge which opened on February 4, 1954. Inside the magazine, there is an in-depth article titled “The Traffic Aspect of the New Granville Street Bridge” by K. Vaughan-Birch, required reading for any urban design students studying bridges today! Tweet me if you’d like to read this issue!
University of British Columbia Campus by James Hill, another grand Maclean’s magazine cover image from the 1950s. Published March 31, 1956, it depicts the hustle and bustle of the end of the school year, but could just as easily be applied to the end of the fall semester. This blog post (and comment stream) is a testament to his career, and an impressive body of his illustrations can be seen in this photoset.
James Hill shares an honour with Franklin Arbuckle, the previous Maclean’s illustrator that I featured here; both were recipients of CAPIC lifetime achievement awards. Because I can’t seem to find mention of these awards on the CAPIC website (faux pas!), I’m going to include the first 10 recipients of the CAPIC lifetime achievement awards below, sourced here:
1986 - Franklin Arbuckle
1987 - Clarence Gagnon
1988 - Oscar Cahén
1989 - James Hill & C.W. Jefferys (recipient of the Ivor Sharp Award for Posthumous Achievement) Interesting side note: Ivor Sharp was the founder of CAPIC and happened to take this rather famous photo of John & Yoko; Ivor died of a stroke in 1989.
1990 - Will Davies
1991 - Don Anderson
1992 - Tom Bjarnason
1993 - Lewis Parker
1994 - Ken Dallison
1995 - Gerald Lazare
I’ve linked to 4 of the recipients above who have pages on wikipedia currently; the others can be found on the Index of Canadian Illustrators, an incredible resource administrated by friend and art compadre Jaleen Grove.
I’m also pleased see that James Hill’s daughter Amanda Hill has a Vancouver connection to the art world. She studied at Basic Inquiry right here in Vancouver in 1997, and then headed to Toronto where she has since exhibited her paintings over the last decade, winning numerous awards along the way. The family legacy continues.
Hy’s Prime Rib, magazine advertisement circa 1975. When prime rib dinners were only $4.95. Overlooking the harbour at Hastings & Bute, Board of Trade Tower, Columbia Centre. From the VPL picture file, Vancouver, BC, Restaurants. (possibly signed by artist “M Homsy”) Hy’s Steakhouse is named after Hy Aisenstat, Calgary restauranteur.
More about Hy’s from vancouverhistory.ca:
Aisenstat, writes Constance Brissenden, “was the son of a Russian emigre wholesale grocer in Calgary. Hy worked in sales, then owned a small oil company. In 1955, with his wife Barbara (born March 20, 1934 in Kirkland Lake, Ont.), he opened Hy’s Steak House in Calgary with a $3,000 loan. They moved to Vancouver (1960) and he opened Hy’s at The Sands, The Mansion (1979) and Hy’s Encore. By 1968, Hy’s of Canada united 12 companies, with restaurants across Canada, and in Chicago, Honolulu, Palm Springs and Beverly Hills. He called his restaurants ‘saloons’ and was noted for smoking 10 Havana cigars daily.”
Hy’s son David Aisenstat now acts as President & CEO of the Keg Restaurants. Ltd, and he among the many restaurants he owns now owns (Hy’s steakhouse chain, Ki Modern Japanese, The Shore Club, and Gotham Steakhouse & Cocktail Bar) word is he has also purchased the Rogers sugar magnate’s mansion Gabriola, and perhaps one day we will see the now empty home transform into a Keg, or maybe even return to a Hy’s restaurant.
The Bay, from an ad on page XLVIII in The Gold Stripe, Volume 1.
The Hudson’s Bay Company was founded on May 2nd, 1670, with the granting of the Royal Charter by King Charles II to “The Governor and Company of Adventurers Trading into Hudson Bay.” [link]
Giant Checkers in Stanley Park, seen on the cover of Maclean’s, August 1, 1953, by Franklin (Archie) Arbuckle (bio). In the 1940s and ’50s, he produced more than 100 covers for Maclean’s (source:Canada through the eyes of Arbuckle)
Update! Film footage of men playing checkers has been spotted in this ONF-NFB film from 1954; cue the film to 6:50. The film is in French, mais alors, c’est ça!
The Vancouver Airport Hyatt House, Richmond, BC, signed by Larson (first name unknown). Now known as the Delta Vancouver Airport Hotel. From the inside cover of Time Magazine, Canada, January 21, 1974.
![The Bay, from an ad on page XLVIII in The Gold Stripe, Volume 1.
The Hudson’s Bay Company was founded on May 2nd, 1670, with the granting of the Royal Charter by King Charles II to “The Governor and Company of Adventurers Trading into Hudson Bay.” [link]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lh09slqt4g1qc7pjjo1_1280.jpg)
