Caven Atkins (1907 2000) was a Canadian figurative and landscape painter.

Early years

Born in

London, Ontario London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...

, Caven Atkins was raised in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. From 1925 to 1928 he studied with

Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald D.F.A., also known as L. L. FitzGerald (March 17, 1890 – August 5, 1956) was a Canadian artist and art educator. He was the only member of the Group of Seven based in western Canada. He worked almost exclusively in Manit ...

at the Winnipeg School of Art. After graduation, Atkins worked at Brigden's commercial art firm, where he met

Bertram Brooker Bertram Richard Brooker, (March 31, 1888 – March 22, 1955) was one of Canada's pioneer abstract painters.Joan Murray. Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century'. Dundurn; November 1999. . p. 40-41. A self-taught polymath, in addition to being a ...

and

Charles Comfort Charles Fraser Comfort, LL. D. (July 22, 1900 – July 5, 1994) was a Scotland-born Canadian painter, sculptor, teacher, writer and administrator. Career and biography Early life Born near Edinburgh, Scotland, Comfort moved to Winnipeg in 1 ...

. Atkins later became friends with Fritz Brandtner, who introduced him to

German expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...

Career

From 1930 to 1934, he was an instructor at the Winnipeg School of Art. He taught painting at Queen’s University summer school in 1943 and at the

Ontario College of Art Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within do ...

in 1945. Other teaching positions he held included the appointments at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

Central Technical School Central Technical School (CTS or Central Tech) is a Canadian composite high school in Toronto, Ontario. The school is run by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB); before 1998, it was run by the Toronto Board of Education (TBE). Central Tech ...

and elsewhere. While teaching at the Ontario College of Art in 1945, he wrote an article for ''Canadian Art'' magazine on using different media. Atkins was not selected to be an official war artist, but he was determined to be in the war effort. He recorded day and night scenes of the activity in the Toronto Shipbuilding Company in a painting and 24 drawings he made in 1942. These he donated to the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...

in 1951 (they subsequently became part of the war art collection prior to their transfer to the

Canadian War Museum The Canadian War Museum (french: link=no, Musée canadien de la guerre; CWM) is a national museum on the country's military history in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The museum serves as both an educational facility on Canadian military history, in a ...

in 1971), where they were acknowledged because of their home front subject matter. Like many artists, Atkins found employment in the immediate post-war period difficult to find. In 1945, he moved to

Birmingham, Michigan Birmingham is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Detroit located along the Woodward Corridor ( M-1). As of the 2010 census, the population was 20,103. History The area comprising what is now the c ...

where he worked as an illustrator and designer for the

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

until he retired. Atkins never returned to live in Canada. He died in Birmingham, Michigan December 22, 2000 at the age of 93.

Selected exhibitions

Atkins had a

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...

of his

watercolours Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

at Hart House (now part of the Art Museum of Toronto) in 1945. In 1979, the Art Gallery of Windsor curated a survey by curator Ted Fraser, titled ''A Retrospective Exhibition of Selected Works by Caven Atkins Spanning Fifty Years of the Artist's Life''. In 1987, the Art Gallery of Windsor organized the circulating exhibition ''Caven Atkins : the Winnipeg years'' curated by Ted Fraser.

Selected collections

His work is included in the

, the Canadian War Museum, the Art Gallery of Algoma, the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beve ...

, the

Art Gallery of Windsor Art Windsor-Essex (AWE) (formerly known as the Art Gallery of Windsor) is a not-for-profit art institute in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Established in 1943, the gallery has a mandate as a public art space to show significant works of art by local ...

(56 works) the

Beaverbrook Art Gallery The Beaverbrook Art Gallery is a public art gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. It is named after William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, who funded the building of the gallery and assembled the original collection. It opened i ...

, Fredericton and the

Remai Modern Remai Modern is a public art museum in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. The art museum is situated along the west bank of the South Saskatchewan River, at the River Landing development in Saskatoon's Central Business District. The museum's build ...

, Saskatoon.

Memberships

Atkins belonged to the Manitoba Society of Artists, the

Canadian Group of Painters The Canadian Group of Painters (CGP) was a collective of 28 painters from across Canada who came together as a group in 1933. Formation The Canadian Group of Painters succeeded the disbanded Group of Seven, whose paintings of the Canadian wilde ...

(1941-1943);

Canadian Society of Graphic Art The Canadian Society of Graphic Art (CSGA), originally called the Graphic Arts Club, was a non-profit organization of Canadian graphic artists. It was founded in 1904, and formally chartered in 1933. At one time it was one of the larger organizatio ...

(1941-1943); and the

Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour The Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (in French: La Société Canadienne de Peintres en Aquarelle), founded in 1925 is considered to be Canada's official national watercolour Society. Since the 1980s the Society has enjoyed Vice-regal ...

(1943-1945) (he was president of the latter two societies). He also belonged to Ontario Association of Teachers of Art (1944-1945).

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Atkins, Caven 1907 births 2000 deaths Artists from London, Ontario 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters 20th-century Canadian artists Canadian watercolourists