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.
Hotel Devonshire, a postcard by Edward Goodall. Here’s an archival photo almost from the same vantage point, or how it would have appeared from the old Hotel Vancouver. According to Emporis, construction began in 1923 and was completed in 1924; the building was designed by the prestigious McCarter & Nairne Partners. More facts:
- Demolished on July 5, 1981 at 7:05 a.m. with 100 kilograms of dynamite, along with the famous Cave nightclub, to make way for the HSBC Building.
- Opened as an apartment building for boarders, named The Devonshire Apartment Hotel.
A followup to yesterday’s post, here is a detail of the cover of the 1937 Pattullo Bridge souvenir programme. I can’t quite make out the signature in the bottom corner of the image, which might not be a signature at all. If anyone has access to the original, please feel free to comment!
The complete souvenir programme is still online at the Buzzer Blog. Special thanks to the Buzzer Blog for posting this back in 2009, and extra special thanks to Lisa Codd, the curator at the Burnaby Village Museum who originally provided the scans to the Buzzer. This item has now been transferred to the Burnaby Archives.
The Evolution of the Vancouver Apartment, from Michael Kluckner’s Vanishing Vancouver: The Last 25 Years, an entirely new book to be published April 30th, 2012 by Whitecap Books. A number of book launch events are scheduled to coincide with the release of this book next month; to learn more about them, see my cross-post at Vancouver Is Awesome.
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…
Vancouver skyline from art gallery steps by Matthew Cencich, who writes on flickr:
A quick, wet, watercolour sketch in my current square sketchbook.
A view of the Vancouver skyline as seen from the top of the steps near the Art Gallery entrance.
Many well known buildings can been seen including; the Vancouver Law Courts; the “Canadian” condo tower; the Wall Centre towers; and the “Electra” condominiums (former BC Hydro building).
Early this morning, a watercolor on paper by Sandrine Pelissier. Sandrine is offering unique financing for her paintings through a rent-to-own arrangement; you can now try a painting before buying it with small monthly payments. Once you’ve paid the full price in rental fees, you own the work!
An early watercolour rendering of the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood by Maud Rees Sherman. This scene is a very early view of the PNE grounds, which took a great deal of fine visual sleuthing to pinpoint. Gary Sim writes:
The view in the watercolour is, to the best of my knowledge, taken from 3642 Dundas Street, where the Sherman family lived from 1913 - 1988. I date the painting c1920, as it fits into the Places to Sketch series that has some paintings dated 1920 - 1922.
The layout of the Vancouver Exhibition Grounds as shown on page 16 of The Pacific National Exhibition - An Illustrated History by Breen & Coates matches the buildings in the watercolour pretty closely … the athletic field is the flat white area just below center, surround by grandstand buildings and other structures. Additional buildings (stock judging pavilion) go up the hill on the right, to Renfrew street, which has some structures along it top left.
This view also matches aerial photos taken by Stuart Thomson in 1919 (Vancouver City Archives), which showed to my surprise that there wasn’t a tree left standing in the whole area.
This painting took me quite a while to identify the location thereof, I thought the white centre was a frozen lake surrounded by cabins. With the info above, plus having been to the house on Dundas, I’m now pretty sure that I have the correct location.
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).
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.
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.
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
Canada Place rendering by architectural illustrator Barry Lundahl, from an Expo 86 promotional brochure. Note this was back in the days when the Seabus was still orange!
