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31 Drawings and 3 Major Paintings
in Brampton, the birthplace of Bloore
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The following thumbnails link down the page
The paintings down the page link to high resolution images
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Bloore was born and raised in the town of Brampton in Peel Region northwest of Toronto. He touches on the subject of his youth there in the interview with Ron Moore here. His daughter Chrisula and son Mark attended the opening. “Ronald Bloore: Black and White” was up from January 31st to May 26th and there were three events on Sunday afternoons.
On February 10th the curator Darrin Martens gave a talk on Bloore's approach to compositional space. And on February 24th there was a putative “opening reception” for these two winter shows which was overwhelmed by the elaborate opening of a photography show in the Peel Museum next door. April 7th brought guest speaker Timothy Long, Head Curator of the Mackenzie Gallery of Regina to give a talk, “Ron Bloore and the Art of Provocation” which focused mainly on Bloore's efforts and adventures as a figure in the art world, particularly as Director of the Mackenzie Gallery from 1958 to ’66.
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1981, Drawing, March 27, Sumi ink on Arches paper, 36 x 51 cm, Peel Art Gallery Collection
(
Click to look a bit closer but there are better photos of three other sumis here)
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1981, Drawing, March 27, Sumi ink on Arches paper, 36 x 51 cm, Peel Art Gallery Collection
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1981, Drawing, March 27, Sumi ink on Arches paper, 36 x 51 cm, Peel Art Gallery Collection
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1981, Drawing, March 27, Sumi ink on Arches paper, 36 x 51 cm, Peel Art Gallery Collection
A commercial show at the Wallace Galleries in Calgary featured three black sumis. They can be seen up close here. Also an old but still functioning page devoted to Bloore's black works is here.
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Two black Bloores in the paper show and two white Bloores in the painting show
In another space at the gallery and concurrent with the Bloore solo exhibition, the “Selections from the Vault,” series show titled “Abstraction in Canada” featured three major white-on-white Bloore paintings including the eight foot wide work from 1982 (or '83?) shown above. In 2006 the artist himself donated a similar work from the same series of paintings to the National Capital Commission in Ottawa. It can be seen here on the site in the Eighties pages. Also hung were two four foot tall works, one square-ish from 1982, the other square from 1992. This exhibition ran from February 7th to May 5th.
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Bloore always felt, and declared, that to be provocative was an essential requirement of art. It could be humourous and it could be pleasing, but it should be disturbing and it should be ambiguous. He said art must always provoke the viewer to question himself. It must take him aback while provoking the desire to progress, and the desire to fathom what progress might look like.
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1982, Painting, oil on masonite, 109 x 244 cm, Peel Art Gallery Collection
as it hung in the show (Click to see Very Large)
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1982, Painting, oil on masonite, 122 x 109 cm, Peel Art Gallery Collection
as it hung in the show (Click to look closer)
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1992, Untitled #21, July 6 - ?, oil on masonite, 122 x 122 cm, Peel Art Gallery Collection
as it hung in the show (Click to look closer)
As the director of the Mackenzie Gallery Bloore saw it as his job to be provocative for the sake of the advancement of culture. He later approached the tasks of public speaker, critic and commentator on art the same way. And as an instructor and professor the mission and the method were again the same. Even chatting over a drink, or seated at a pleasant dinner Bloore’s often very ambiguous provocations and occasionally disturbing humour were well known. Snapshots of his many modes are here.
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