HMS Discovery & Chatham Becalmed June 9, 1792, depicted here in Puget Sound in watercolour by Captain Steve Mayo in 2012. This is a little out of our jurisdiction, but we could just as well imagine these ships making their way into Burrard Inlet. He blogs about the painting here: 

My painting shows the two vessels around 3:00 as the wind died off in the middle of Rosario Strait with Mt. Baker in the background. The south part of Cypress Island is prominent behind the Discovery. Strawberry Bay, their destination, is just beyond the scene to the left. The Chatham has drifted a little further east and has lost steerageway. Vancouver has hoisted the signal to start towing; the Chatham has already manned her launch and is rigging a towline…

A detail of significance in my painting is the portrayal of the stern decorations on the Discovery. I have followed, as closely as possible, a photograph of a wash painting of HMS Discovery done in 1790-91. The original was painted from life by a professional maritime artist, (possibly) Robert Cleveley, while the ship was moored in the Thames River just prior to her epic voyage.

The contemporary artist, Mark Myers, alerted me to the existence of this photocopy and where it resides in Whitby, England. The wash painting is very accurate so the hull and rigging details match precisely the actual Admiralty plans of

Discovery in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Unfortunately, the Admiralty plans do not show any details of the ship’s stern decorations so that wash painting is very revealing. It also bears out the unusual detail from her body plan that we have known for years: the Discovery was built with no tumble-home to the sides of her hull.

Via Allan Peters blog, the Target advertising reveal for Vancouver. Credits from the blog: Sr CD: Ruth Balbach; CD: Steve Chirhart; Sr. AD: Allan Peters; Sr. CW: Sage Rider; Illustrator: Lab Partners. 

When Target launched it’s first 200 stores in Canada, the brand needed to make a few friends. As the lead Art Director on the Canada social team, I came up with the idea to create vintage travel poster inspired artwork showing bullseye the dog traveling across the country. The posts were strategically leaked throughout the day starting with a tight crop and the post “Hi Neighbor! Bullseye is out on the open road helping celebrate our Canadian store openings. Keep checking in and see if you can spot where he is next”. This invited the audience to participate in a guessing game based on the landmarks revealed in the illustrations. At the end of the day the location was revealed with a message stating how excited Target was to be their new neighbor.

Has anyone photographed the Target - Skytrain wrap? Let me know if you spot it in person or via Twitter, Flickr, or Instagram.

From Kitsilano by Frederick H. Varley, a depiction of the home he shared with his wife and kids on Point Grey Road. From Kitsilano Living Magazine in May of 2008:

Varley’s 1932 painting of the view from his now-demolished Point Grey Road house sold for $207,000.

Today, 3857 Point Grey Road is on the site of the Jericho Tennis Club and its tennis bubbles. But in the late 1920s and early 1930s, it was the location of the modest home of Varley. Varley executed a luminous painting of his house, its neighbour, and the surrounding landscape in 1932. From Kitsilano is small but beautiful, a classic Vancouver scene of Kits, English Bay and the North Shore mountains.

Thanks again for the submission Diana!

Vancouver, circa 1962 from the opening pages of George Kuthan’s book Vancouver: Sights & Insights. This colourized variation is a scan of an electronic reproduction of what could be an aquatint or perhaps a hand coloured drawing. None of the images in the above mentioned books are shown in colour, but this print demonstrates the possibilities. The print came from Robert R. Reid’s studio, via Heavenly Monkey. Robert was a close friend of George Kuthan, and this colour treatment was likely done by Robert in more recent years. From the Heavenly Monkey website:

…The two met at Reid’s printing shop in Vancouver in 1951, shortly after Kuthan’s arrival in Canada. Born in Klatovy, Czechoslovakia in 1916, Kuthan was a medical student at the University of Prague when the Nazis closed it, in 1939. It was at this time that he turned his attention to art, which he studied at Prague’s School of Decorative Arts for the next six years. After the war he went on to study painting and various forms of printmaking in Paris for several years. What few published details of his life exist indicate he enjoyed some success while there, making his decision to emigrate to Canada somewhat puzzling (especially since he first landed in Saskatchewan!). Shortly after arriving in Vancouver, he was introduced to Reid…

More biographical information about George Kuthan can be found here, and a pamphlet from 1964 from the Private Press of Robert R. Reid dedicated to George’s work can be seen here.

TED2014 masthead, via TED.com. Coming next year.

Parks & Playgrounds, Vancouver BC brochure, dated 1925, seen at MacLeod’s Books recently. This cover depicts a proposed monument (I can’t recall if it was a column or an obelisk, sorry) at the end of the causeway entrance to Stanley Park, seen here overlooking Lost Lagoon. When the causeway was completed, they didn’t end up with a stone monument but erected a flagpole instead.

A reminder; TODAY there is a Walk in the Forest event at VanDusen Gardens. Come down from 12-2pm for a little art mob excursion! The 1976 modernist pavilion originally known as MacMillan-Bloedel Place is facing demolition, and Michael Kluckner, with support from Heritage Vancouver, would like to see it preserved. 

The building known as the Education Centre (also the Forest Education Centre) is a modernist masterpiece lost in the forest of an untended section of VanDusen Garden. Built in 1976, it was originally known as MacMillan-Bloedel Place, named for its donor, the largest forestry company in what was then the largest industry in British Columbia. Its unique educational displays, including a 50-seat theatre, were called “A Walk in the Forest.”

Architect Paul Merrick, working then as chief designer for Thompson, Berwick & Pratt, set the pavilion into a small hill on the edge of a lake in the northwest part of the gardens. Its green roof was one of the first in the city, and its unique internal columns used some of the finest wood in British Columbia. It won the Canadian Architect Yearbook Award of Excellence Award in 1974, and was constructed by Halse-Martin of Vancouver. It was once an object of pride for the city, VanDusen Garden and the Park Board…

[read more]

Note this campaign is not endorsed by the Park Board or VanDusen Garden staff.

Coast Mountain Bus Company employees bid farewell to Oakridge Transit Centre, August 2006, a specially commissioned card by illustrator Barb Wood, who has been frequently featured here, and who has frequently included public transit in her artwork.

I got a behind the scenes tour of the Oakridge garage on one of the Trams excursions back in 2008, on the last ride of the E901/902 Flyers. Photos here.

Card courtesy of an insider at Translink. Thanks, eh!

Vancouver Panorama, artist unknown, printed by Pierre Marc Products, Berkeley, California and distributed by the Vancouver Magazine Service Ltd. Because the Grouse Mountain tram is red, we can probably date this some time after or around 1976, when the original blue tram was upgraded with the new red Super Skyride tram. Seen via ebay.

Vancouver Harbour Panorama, a watercolour by Robert Amos. He writes on his site:

When I opened the curtains in my room in Vancouver’s Fairmont Waterfront Hotel, I saw the fabulous view of all the complexity of Vancouver’s harbour and the view to the east. The container port, helipad, harbour ferry and dredging barge were right there for me to contemplate and paint at my leisure.

Robert recently wrote this article for the Times Colonist about Gary Sim’s CD-ROM of British Columbia Artists. Robert is currently artist-in-residence at the Fairmont Empress Hotel, Victoria, and is in the midst of digitizing and transferring some of his collection of art ephemera to the University of Victoria Library and Archives. Bravo, Robert!

Two sets of Gordon Kit Thorne prints for sale on ebay. These two prints showing the two Lions are my favourites, one showing a determined hiker headed up the north Shore Mountains, the other depicting a more sedated view from Stanley Park. It seems to me his work has the ability to border kitsch, folk, and fine art all at once. Makes me wonder if he should have been a cartoonist instead.

Vancouver Magazine from October, 1997 illustrated by Ken Steacy. This was Ken’s first collaboration with Douglas Coupland, and was the foldout centrespread from the magazine that Doug guest edited titled “The Bridge That Keeps On Going”.

Grouse Mountain Chair Lift ad, from the Hotel Vancouver’s Profile Magazine, August, 1967. This ad really ought to be in colour!

Lions Gateway to Vancouver, a vintage advertising decal from CKLG, on ebay.

Three more aquarelles by Gordon Kit Thorne, via ebay.

Along the Banks of Lynn Creek, a tribute to Frederick Varley painted by Neil Macdonald, 2012, photo redux by me, tour this past weekend thanks to DaveO! Neil Macdonald’s paintings are on exhibit in the Lynn Valley Main Library until January 29, 2013. From the show description:

Neil grew up in East Vancouver in the fifties. He first discovered Lynn Valley as a child when he and his friends would venture across the old second narrows bridge on their bikes, park them at Menzie’s Store on Keith Road, and then hike into the spectacular watershed of Lynn Creek.

As a married adult, Neil was thrilled to purchase waterfront property on Lynn Creek, a place with so many fond childhood memories. He designed and built a home and art studio located down the road from an original member of the Group of Seven, Frederick H. Varley. Excited to live where many of Varley’s paintings were created, and to view the same inspirational scenery as Varley, Neil was motivated to create his first series of paintings in 1986.

 It has been nearly two decades since Neil lived in his first home on Lynn Creek, but a recent visit back to Lynn Canyon re-inspired him to create a new body of work about it. Through a palette containing the cool turquoises of water, the mossy greens of  rocks and the rich dark colours the forest canopy, he has captured the pristine beauty of the canyon in this new exhibition. His watercolour and acrylic paintings are a tribute to F.H. Varley, and celebrate the inspiration and wealth of imagery they both found in Lynn Valley.