John Hall (born January 17, 1943) is a Canadian
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
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 ...
from
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
, known for his highly realistic painting style.
Life
He has taught fine art at Ohio Wesleyan University,
the
Alberta College of Art and Design
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 departme ...
,
and the
University of Calgary
The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...
(1971-1998) (since 1998, he has been Professor Emeritus of the Department of Art). Currently, he is based in West
Kelowna
Kelowna ( ) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna derives from the Okanagan word ''kiĘ ...
, BC
Career
Throughout his career, Hall has focused on painstakingly accurate
still-life
A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, boo ...
paintings of everyday objects.
He has said in the past that he chooses the objects both for their symbolism and for their formal relationships. In 2016, curator Liz Wylie suggested that he is moved and inspired by the effects of light on objects.
In 1969, he taught at
Ohio Wesleyan University
Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) is a private liberal arts college in Delaware, Ohio. It was founded in 1842 by methodist leaders and Central Ohio residents as a nonsectarian institution, and is a member of the Ohio Five – a consortium ...
and while there travelled to nearby American museums and New York to see American
Pop art of the 1960s. As Wylie points out, such art had a huge role in allowing artists to pursue representational painting, especially in the face of the dominant art forms in their ascendancies at the same time – Minimalism and the various forms of conceptual art. Hall felt confirmed by American New Realist painters in his choice of
still-life
A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, boo ...
subject, though what he painted varied. He choose grungy subject matter and painted on a huge scale. The result was fascinating and unique.
![Nuclear Fever by John Hall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Nuclear_Fever_by_John_Hall.jpg)
While in Ohio, Hall created a gigantic ''Garbage'' triptych measuring six metres long, which is now in the collection of the Nickle Galleries at the University of Calgary. He continued to paint this series when he moved back to Canada to Calgary, though over time, varied his practice to encompass new themes.
He spent a year painting in New York in 1979/80, the same time that he painted his canvas ''Harry'' (1980) and was given a touring one-person show by 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 the 1980s, Hall created his ''Tourist'' Series and his Toys series, followed by his ''Still-Life Portrait'' series, begun in 1984. These last works were featured in a one-person touring show organized by the
Agnes Etherington Art Centre
The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is located in Kingston, Ontario, in the heart of the historic campus of Queen's University. Situated on traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory, the gallery has received a number of awards for its exhib ...
at Queen’s University in
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (south end of the Rideau Canal). The city is midway between Toro ...
, in 1989. Mixed in between all these series were his Mexican-themed paintings, done during his annual six-month stays there between 1988 and 1999, which culminated in 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 ...
exhibition at Mexico’s City’s
Museo de Arte Moderno
The Museo de Arte Moderno (Museum of Modern Art) is located in Chapultepec park, Mexico City, Mexico.
The museum is part of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura and provides exhibitions of national and international contemporary a ...
in 1994.
In the 1990s Hall began to exploit the information and results possible by using digital photography and
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...
.
Since moving to West
Kelowna
Kelowna ( ) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna derives from the Okanagan word ''kiĘ ...
in 1999, Hall has completed several series of work, many of domestic still-life subjects such as tea cups and food, followed by a series on vegetables and fruit.
Hall has also participated in group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Europe and Japan.
He has received commissions from Calgary’s Foothills Hospital, the Royal Bank of Canada, and Cineplex Odeon.
Hall was also perhaps the first artist in Canada to publish a selection of his work on a CD-ROM.
In 2009, Hall and Calgary-based artist
Alexandra Haeseker
Alexandra Haeseker (born 1945) is a Dutch-born Canadian painter, print maker, and installation artist, based in Calgary, Alberta. She is a professor emerita at Alberta University of the Arts. Her works can be found in public collections in C ...
, a long-time collaborator and colleague of Hall’s, showed together in ''Pendulum/ Pendula''. The exhibition consisted of collaborative realistic paintings which both had done in Canada and Mexico from 1992 to 1998. Each painted half of the canvas. These paintings were seen in many public galleries – four in Mexico and four in BC.
![Chambers by John Hall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Chambers_by_John_Hall.jpg)
In 2016, the Kelowna Art Gallery organized ''John Hall: Travelling Light: A forty-five-year survey of paintings'' curated by Liz Wylie. The exhibition traveled to the Nickle Art Museum at the University of Calgary in 2017.
It was accompanied by a book, published by
Black Dog Publishing
Black Dog Publishing was a British publishing company specialising in illustrated non-fiction books on contemporary culture. Topics covered by Black Dog include architecture, art, craft, design, environment, fashion, film, music and photograph ...
in the United Kingdom, which included colour reproductions of all of the works in the show and also texts by Wylie and by
Alexandra Haeseker
Alexandra Haeseker (born 1945) is a Dutch-born Canadian painter, print maker, and installation artist, based in Calgary, Alberta. She is a professor emerita at Alberta University of the Arts. Her works can be found in public collections in C ...
.
In 2016, he began the series he called ''Framed''. In 2020, he based the composition and some of the elements of his paintings on art history, using still-life painting done in past centuries as a springboard.
Selected Public Collections
*Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Calgary
*
Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario
*
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (AGNS) is a public provincial art museum based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The art museum's primary building complex is located in downtown Halifax and takes up approximately of space. The museum complex compr ...
, Halifax, Nova Scotia
*
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 ...
, Toronto (own ''Ricochet'', 1980s)
*
Canada Council
The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal i ...
Art Bank, Ottawa
*Confederation Art Gallery & Museum, Charlottetown
*
Edmonton Art Gallery
The Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) is an art museum in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The museum occupies a building at Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton. The museum building was originally designed by Donald G. Bittorf, and B. James Wensley, alth ...
*
Glenbow Museum
The Glenbow Museum is an art and history regional museum in the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The museum focuses on Western Canadian history and culture, including Indigenous perspectives. The Glenbow was established as a private non-profi ...
, Calgary, Alberta
*Kitchener/Waterloo Art Gallery, Kitchener, Ontario
*
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 ...
, Regina (own ''Harry'' (1980))
*Memorial University Art Gallery, Newfoundland
*
Mendel Art Gallery
The Mendel Art Gallery was a major creative cultural centre in City Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Operating from 1964 to 2015, it housed a permanent collection of more than 7,500 works of art. The gallery was managed by the city-owned Saskatoon G ...
, Saskatoon
*
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 ...
, Ottawa
*
University of Calgary
The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...
* University College of Cape Breton Art Gallery
*
Winnipeg Art Gallery
The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...
Personal life
He is married to painter
Joice M. Hall.
References
Bibliography
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, John
Living people
1943 births
Artists from Edmonton
20th-century Canadian painters
21st-century Canadian painters
Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts