Discovering a Canadian art legend
Bill Jeffries, 778.782.4990, wjeffrie@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3025, cthorbes@sfu.ca
In his wildest dreams, Simon Fraser University Gallery Director Bill Jeffries would love to see the gallery’s next exhibition at the Burnaby campus transform a little-known Canadian painter into a Canadian art legend.
For now, Jeffries will settle for seeing gallery-goers gain an appreciation of what Canadians have been missing when they visit Walter Tandy Murch: The Spirit of Things, Sept. 11-Oct. 30.
Murch (1907-1967), a Torontonian schooled at the Ontario College of Art in the mid-1920s, gained fame and fortune in the 1950s and 60s in New York city as both a painter and commercial artist.
His simultaneously surrealistic and Old World realistic renderings of modern inventions made of newly discovered materials, such as a light bulb, a record player and a spray can, foreshadowed Andy Warhol’s creation of Pop Art.
Murch’s work has graced many covers of prestigious magazines, including Fortune and Scientific America, and resides in many American museums and private collections. However, there is only one Murch in a Canadian collection, at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.
The upcoming SFU exhibit, featuring 20 of Murch’s oil paintings on loan from private collections and the artist’s estate, will be the first Canadian show of his work west of Ontario.
“One aim of this exhibition, which the Robert MacLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa is touring, is to fill in a gap in Canadian art history by putting Murch back on the Canadian art map,” says Jeffries. “In the process, we hope to remind Canadians about the almost complete absence of Murch works in this country, in either private or public collections.”
Jeffries and Ihor Holubizky, who are two of Canada’s key Murch enthusiasts, have co-authored a catalogue of the upcoming exhibit, available at the SFU Gallery. Holubizky is curator of McMaster University's gallery.
Murch’s son, Walter Scott Murch, who is a legend in cinema sound production and editing, will present a free public talk about his father’s work on Friday, Sept. 10, 8 p.m. The talk will be held at SFU Woodward’s Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema.
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