Arthur Fortescue McKay, best known as Art McKay (September 11, 1926 – August 3, 2000) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and a member of The

Regina Five Regina Five is the name given to five abstract painters, Kenneth Lochhead, Arthur McKay, Douglas Morton, Ted Godwin, and Ronald Bloore, who displayed their works in the 1961 National Gallery of Canada's exhibition "Five Painters from Regina". W ...

. Many of his works are modernist abstractions.

Early life and education

McKay was born in Nipawin, Saskatchewan. His father was Joseph Fortescue McKay, a son of Angus McKay whose own grandfather was the younger John Richards McKay and whose grandmother was Harriet Ballenden. This and other ancestry would qualify McKay as an Anglo-Métis artist in Saskatchewan and in Canada. His mother, Georgina Agnes Newnham, was a daughter of another historical figure in Saskatchewan, the Anglican Bishop of Saskatchewan, Jervois Newnham. From an early age, McKay drew landscape. His training in art began at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art (now the

Alberta University of the Arts The Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts) is a public art university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution that operates four academic schools. The institution originated from the art departmen ...

) in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

(1946–1948), and later at the

Académie de la Grande Chaumière The Académie de la Grande Chaumière is an art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris, France. History The school was founded in 1904 by the Catalan painter Claudio Castelucho on the rue de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, near the Acadé ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

(1949–1950),

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

(1956–1957), and The

Barnes Foundation The Barnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pen ...

Merion Merion Station, also known as Merion, is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It borders Philadelphia to its west and is one of the communities that make up the Philadelphia Main Line. Merion Station is part of Lower Me ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

(1956–1957).

Career

In 1952, McKay joined the staff of the Regina Art School (today

University of Regina The University of Regina is a public research university located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Founded in 1911 as a private denominational high school of the Methodist Church of Canada, it began an association with the University of Saskatchew ...

).J. Russell Harper.
Painting in Canada: A History
'. University of Toronto Press; 1977. . p. 352ff. From 1951 to 1956, he was a lecturer in art at the University of Saskatchewan.Barry Lord.
The history of painting in Canada: toward a people's art
'. NC Press; 1974. . pp. 209–210 While there, McKay helped organize a series of

Emma Lake Artists' Workshops The Emma Lake Artists' Workshops are affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Summer art classes were originally taught by Augustus Kenderdine at Murray Point, Saskatchewan, Murray Point on Emma Lake (Saskatchewan), Emma Lake in ...

in rural Saskatchewan.Lora Senechal Carney.
Canadian Painters in a Modern World, 1925–1955: Writings and Reconsiderations
'. McGill-Queen's University Press; 2017. . p. 254ff. He became an associate professor in art there between 1956 and 1974, and director from 1964 to 1967. In 1978, he was an associate professor of art at the University of Regina. McKay received national and international attention as one of the painting group the

.
Canadian Library Journal
'. Vols. 29–30. Canadian Library Association.; 1972. p. 201. The group's paintings were exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada in 1961 in a show titled "Five Painters from Regina".James M. Pitsula.
New World Dawning: The Sixties at Regina Campus
'. University of Regina Press; 2008. . p. 46ff. He was influenced in the 1960s by

Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...

,"Arthur MacKay"
''The Canadian Encyclopedia''. whom he, Ron Bloore, and

Roy Kiyooka Roy Kenzie Kiyooka (January 18, 1926January 8, 1994) was a Canadian painter, poet, photographer, arts teacher, and multi-media artist. Biography A Nisei, or a second generation Japanese Canadian, Roy Kenzie Kiyooka was born in Moose Jaw, Saskat ...

invited to the Emma Lake Artists' Workshop as guest artist in 1959.
A Companion to American Art
'. Wiley; 30 January 2015. . p. 302ff. McKay's best known works are his scraped enamel circular and rectangular "mandalas", in which he uses relaxing, contemplative imagery to depict ideas related to

Zen Buddhism Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

. McKay was included in

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formal ...

's 1964 "

Post-Painterly Abstraction Post-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toront ...

" exhibition. In the 1970s, he continued to paint abstractions but also reintroduced the landscape in his work. In 1997, the

MacKenzie Art Gallery The MacKenzie Art Gallery (MAG; french: Musee d’art MacKenzie) is an art museum located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The museum occupies the multipurpose T. C. Douglas Building, situated at the edge of the Wascana Centre. The building holds e ...

mounted a national travelling exhibition, "Arthur F. McKay: A Critical Retrospective". At the exhibition opening, McKay said: "If I had known I was that good, I would have painted more." His work is in many collections, both public and private, such as the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. McKay died on August 3, 2000, in

Squamish, British Columbia Squamish (; Squamish language, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim: Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, ; 2016 census population 19,512) is a community and a district municipality in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, located at th ...

, at the age of 73.

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:McKay, Arthur 1926 births 2000 deaths Artists from Saskatchewan People from Nipawin, Saskatchewan Alumni of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters 20th-century Canadian male artists Canadian abstract artists