Celebrating BOMA’s 100th Anniversary in 2011, by Barb Wood. Last month Barb Wood celebrated her 30th year in the illustration business; she blogged about the occasion here, where she posted a few celebratory images from her portfolio.

Goad’s atlas of the city of Vancouver, British Columbia and surrounding municipalities in four volumes from 1912. Fire insurance maps are great; I’m posting it here primarily for the typography, but the maps are great too! From Collections Canada, which has volume one (Kits) and two (Grandview) posted out of four. Via Michael Kluckner’s recent blog post at grandviewheritage.blogspot.com.

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.

An ink on paper drawing submitted by Louise Phillips dating back to November 30th, 2005. Louise writes:

I thought of this drawing today, a few years after it was made, but the map of Vancouver and my impression of Richmond remain true to the time of its making.

The drawing is in ink on the cover of an environmentally friendly notebook found on sale in a Steveston shop. I was newly arrived from Toronto and experiencing a strange kind of culture shock. Drawing and writing were a guarantee of sanity.

Perhaps it is timely in this year, 2012 - the Queen’s Jubilee Year, to look back at the past!

Thanks Louise!

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). 

Store flyer for Belleek China, from the D.E. Hutchinson Jewelers store in Vancouver, previously located at 683 Granville Street (now the site of the Sears building, former Eaton’s Pacific Centre). This is a bit late for Valentine’s, but better late than never? Oh, except D.E. Hutchinson closed decades ago, before Eaton’s Pacific Centre was built. Actually, I don’t see the business listed in the 1940 phone book, so that means they must have been there some time later from the 1940s-1960s. Store flyer for sale on ebay. Happy Valentine’s Day none the less!

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.

pasttensevancouver:

Militant Moms of Raymur, Wednesday 6 January 1971

Concerned for the safety of their children, mothers from the Raymur Housing project in Strathcona lobbied to have a pedestrian overpass built so their children wouldn’t have to cross busy train tracks to get to Seymour Elementary School. After getting nowhere with the City and rail companies, the moms set up an encampment on the tracks and blocked rail traffic to the waterfront. To resolve the issue, the City was forced to build the Keefer Street overpass. For more on this story, check out Viaduct.

As far as I know, this image originally appeared in Open Road, an anarchist newspaper published in Vancouver from the late 1970s to the mid-80s.

Source: Only (A) Beginning: An Anarchist Anthology, via GraveWisdom

Cover of Edith Adam’s Wartime Cook Book, 1943, from the Vancouver Sun (digitally enhanced). The cover art is by Fraser Wilson, who drew comics for the Vancouver Sun and the Daily Province until 1947. This quote from the publication Youth, Unions, and You:

Wilson was born in 1905, in Vancouver. A gifted cartoonist, he sold his first published illustration to a national magazine at the age of twelve. In his early life he painted ships in Wallace’s Shipyards, ran a candy store, did carpentry, developed photos, worked as a painter and decorator, and laboured in a shipyard. It was due to a work-related injury in the yard that he pursued commercial cartooning as a career. At the peak of his political cartooning reputation, he was a favoured artist in both Vancouver dailies, the Vancouver Sun and the Province.

Back to this wonderfully ambitious and optimistic guide to better wartime cooking, the publication was mentioned here in the October 2009 issue of the North Vancouver Museum and Archives paper, Express. The cover indicates this was the 9th annual issue of the cookbook, but fails to mention that Edith Adams was, in fact, a pseudonym! Actually, most folks may well have known that; the recipes in these books were prize winning entries submitted by Vancouver Sun readers, as mentioned in the book Culinary landmarks: a bibliography of Canadian cookbooks, 1825-1949 by Elizabeth Driver. A quote from the introduction of this book notes:

From 1947, Edith Adams even had her own ‘cottage’ adjacent to the newspaper’s building, where Vancouver residents would flock to see Marianne Linnell as ‘Edith’ demonstrate recipes.

If you want to see more of these books, you can seek out the Edith Adams Omnibus, a reprint from 2005 with more than 1000 recipes, compiling the first thirteen of these famed cook books and updated for today’s standards of cooking.

Happy 100th Birthday, Vancouver Sun!

Addendum by pasttensevancouver:

Fraser Wilson is the artist who painted the proletarian mural inside the Maritime Labour Centre. It was moved there from its original location at Pender Hall.

Greer House, a sketch by a grade 7 student at Lord Selkirk Elementary School. Thanks again for your submissions, Sid!

Images of Vancouver, an Ian McLeod poster, one of a series of vintage Vancouver posters offered on ebay, three of which I have already featured here at Illustrated Vancouver.

Cindy Buckshon’s Transit Roots Art Exhibition opens this Saturday, February 11, 2012 at the Deer Lake Gallery in Burnaby. I’m resisting the urge to show a link to her blog to help build suspense! I just know this show will be loaded with Vancouver transit love, and I implore you to go and check it out! Makes a great Valentine’s expedition!

Reception is from 2-4pm, and refreshments will be served, the general public is welcome; transit riders especially welcome! I believe the gallery is only open Tues - Sat Noon - 4pm, so be sure to get there before 4!

6584 Deer Lake Avenue
Burnaby, BC
Map to Deer Lake Gallery

YMCA Building at Burrard and Barclay St by McCarter & Nairne, perspective view 1940, pencil and colour wash on illustration board. Reprinted on page 56 of Trace Magazine, July - Sept 1981. The building recently went through a complete redevelopment and is now known as The Robert Lee YMCA Building, joining forces with a 42-storey residential tower known as Patina. For those who want to read the fine print, here’s the City of Vancouver rezoning report and Heritage Revitalization Agreement from 2005. The Vancouver Observer took a tour of the facilities in this 2010 article. The numbers, briefly: 

Number of units: 256
Cost of YMCA restoration: $67 million
Total project cost: $250 million
What I’d really like to know: cost of the original building in 1940 ??

Heritage Hall by Andrea Rodgers, another Buzzer cover illustration, via the Buzzer Blog. From the Buzzer interview:

Tell us about yourself and your art.
I like the aesthetic of rough hand drawn lines. Often working in pen, I like to add in watercolour and india ink. The unexpected nature of the medium appeals to me. Makes it more of an adventure. For this illustration I scanned it in and worked with photoshop and illustrator.

How did you come up with the concept for your illustration?
Heritage hall is an architectural beauty in Vancouver. It was an easy choice to represent the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. On a good day – From this point on the hill you can often see the mountains and a good part of the city too…

A Souvenir Pillowcase of Vancouver, on glorious printed silk. I’ve covered the souvenir plate meme previously, and this vintage pillowcase is definitely inspired by the tourist art aesthetic. We may never learn who the artists involved were, but looking at the closeup images, the artwork really begins to resemble scenes from a comic book, and I can totally imagine Tintin suddenly blazing onto the scene! I’m having a hard time dating this piece, but I have a hunch or two. For more, plus a DIY contest challenge, check out the cross-post on VancouverIsAwesome.com