Regina Five is the name given to five abstract painters, Kenneth Lochhead,

Arthur McKay Arthur Fortescue McKay, best known as Art McKay (September 11, 1926 – August 3, 2000) was a Canadian painter and a member of The Regina Five. Many of his works are modernist abstractions. Early life and education McKay was born in Nipawin, ...

, Douglas Morton,

Ted Godwin Edward W. (Ted) Godwin, D.F.A. (August 13, 1933 – January 3, 2013) was the youngest member of the Regina Five, a group of five artists ( Ken Lochhead, Art McKay, Ron Bloore and Douglas Morton) all based in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1961 when ...

, and Ronald Bloore, who displayed their works in the 1961

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 ...

's exhibition "Five Painters from Regina". With painter

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 ...

and architect Clifford Wiens, this group shared a common professional commitment and became a small but active artistic community in Regina. Having studied in central Canada, the United States, and Europe, before moving to Regina, the Regina Five combined the major currents of abstract expressionism in the context of 1950s Saskatchewan. In 1958, Ronald Bloore, then the director of the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery (now

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 ...

) in

Regina, Saskatchewan Regina () is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province, after Saskatoon, and is a commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. As of the 2021 C ...

, brought national and international exhibitions to Regina. These exhibitions underscored the originality of the Regina Five's work. The Regina Five's bold, nonfigurative paintings represented a new direction in abstract painting in western Canada and reflected influx of advanced ideas arriving through the channel of the annual Emma Lake Artists' Workshops, especially the workshop held 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 ...

in 1959. The painters came to national attention when Bloore organized "The May Show" (1960), featuring five of the city`s most prominent abstract artists and architectural drawings and models by architect Clifford Wiens along with sculptures by Wolfram Niessen, to coincide with the meeting of the Canadian Museums Association. The exhibition inspired Richard B. Simmins, Coordinator of Extension Services at the National Gallery of Canada, to select work of the five painters for a travelling exhibition titled ''Five Painters from Regina'' that appeared in 1961 in Ottawa. Simmins` essay in the ''Five Painters from Regina'' catalogue stressed the importance of Emma Lake Workshops run by the New York school and of Ron Bloore who acted as a catalyst. Simmins wrote that Bloore, who was from Toronto, brought to Regina a set of values which challenged the other painters.

References

External links

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Doug Morton in Memoriam -- York University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Regina Five Canadian artist groups and collectives