William Kurelek – the name has always conjured up illustrative images of joyous and innocent childhood in the prairies of the 1930s as in the books, A Prairie Boy’s Summer and A Prairie Boy’s Winter (published in 1975 and 1973). I’d always admired the colour and detail, the descriptive power, of this work even if it was meant for children. I vaguely knew of him as a chronicler of different cultural groups eg Inuit, Ukrainians. But that’s all I knew of William Kurelek.

 

 

A few months ago, all that changed. I was lucky enough to see an extraordinary exhibition of his work. Entitled William Kurelek: The Messenger, it revealed how ignorant I was about this man and his paintings.

There are four things that made a real impact on me:

1) His anguished early years, his resultant conversion to Catholicism and the affect of his faith on his work throughout his life

2) His apocalyptic work – shocking in their sense of doom and with a strong message about morality

3) The large size of many of his paintings (for some reason I always thought he worked on a pretty small scale)

4) The modern abstract design in much of his work

 

William Kurelek (1927-1977) was born in Alberta to Ukrainian parents and brought up on a dairy farm in Stonewall, Manitoba. He studied at the Ontario College of Art before travelling to England in his mid 20’s to both broaden his art experience and seek psychiatric help. In 1952, he was treated for severe depression and eventually underwent art therapy. When released, he was able to travel to Europe where he encountered the work of Pieter Bruegel, Hieronymous Bosch and Jan Van Eyck, all artists he admired and whose influence is easily seen in Kurelek’s paintings.

 

Here are some of the pieces he painted while in England:

 

 

 

 

In 1957, he converted to Roman Catholism. He moved back to Toronto in 1959 where he became a framer at The Issacs Gallery and eventually began having exhibitions there. His artistic path straddled the line between popularity and spreading the Christian message.

 

Here are four paintings from the 1960s  with obvious messages that made a particular impression on me:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 “As an artist I have a particular vision of what will happen because of the things men are doing and becoming; I feel compelled…to express it graphically in desperate hope that somewhere, sometime, someone may be moved to think again.”  William Kurelek, The Burning Barn, unpublished notes for an exhibition at Hart House, University of Toronto, 1969

 

There are so many images I could share with you but I’ll end with a few that blew me away because of their underlying design. The expanse of the Prairies in contrast to the smallness of us beings is beautifully portrayed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to end on a happy note:

 

 

With 85 pieces in the show, it was difficult to make my choices but I am hoping this sampling will intrigue you enough to search out Kurelek painting in the ‘real’ as these photos do NOT do his work justice.

 

“Paintings may not have nearly the power to convert people that the printed or spoken word has, but each man has his part to play in the human and divine drama – some persons just a few lines, others whole pages. To refuse to play one’s role at all is not the answer. It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”

 

I’d love to hear from you- had you heard of William Kurelek before this and if you had, did you any idea of his whole oeuvre? Were you as surprised as I was? For more about this exhibition, and to see much clearer images, click on this link. Also, a lovely nfb film tells the story of his Ukrainian family through Kurelek’s paintings.

 

As always, thanks for reading!!

 

~ Gail