The Reference Listings:
Damning with faint rays

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998)

Bloore / Ronald (b. 1925), Canadian painter, organizer of a group of artists (including himself) known as the Regina Five. His work is characterized by limited subject matter and a restricted pallette.

The Canadian Encyclopedia (wrong wrong wrong )

Bloore, Ronald, painter (b at Brampton, Ont 29 May 1925). Bloore studied at University of Toronto (BA 1949) and in the US and England. Appointed director of the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery Regina in 1958, he brought in important, progressive exhibitions, and he introduced his students at the School of Art (Regina College: later University of Saskatchewan) to the work of the American abstract expressionists.

Bloore was instrumental in inviting Barnett Newman to lead the summer workshop at EMMA LAKE, Saskatchewan, in 1959, an event of lasting influence on the Regina art scene. In 1960 he organized an exhibition of a group, including himself, that became known as the REGINA FIVE. The exhibition went on a national tour and was presented to the National Gallery of Canada in 1961. The work of the Regina Five, still influential, was seen as the expression of the new painting emerging in the Canadian West.

Bloore achieved a remarkable control and resolve in his painting early in his career, confining himself to the limited subject matter of "symbol-like elements" and a severely restricted palette. The paintings come alive by the play of light and shadows on the raised textured surfaces. Bloore retired in 1990 from York University where he had been a professor since 1966. A major show of paintings, drawings, etc, was held in 1987.

Rebuttal

When children play the game "Telephone," a simple thing is written down and then it is whispered to whoever is first. They whisper what they remember of it to the next child and so on. What the last child hears is compared to what was written and they all laugh at their own expense and how remarkable it has become.

When MacLelland and Stewart plays the game, something remarkable goes round and round and then the last person one would think of writes down what they think they heard in a very big book and they all laugh at the expense of the subject.

Since about the time the word disincentive entered into them, these big books have been priced according to the number of facts they contain and decidedly not by the number of correct or relevant facts they contain. At the same time books are (perhaps wisely?) expected less and less to be remarkable. At least in a positive sense of that word.

As should be plain from the two entries above, these books generally steal from other books whose entries are bigger than their own will be. But some of the books with the biggest entries at the top of this trickle go straight to the horse's mouth for the horse's facts. If you want to be in the next edition of "The Big Book of Canadian Horses," as they insist you should be, then just fill out all these forms and outline your major achievements for them and send a check for a certain amount to "The Big Bank Account for Canadian Horses." Please add $40 for each occurrence of the word dignified and $50 for each occurrence of the word principled you wish in your entry.

MacLelland and Stewart's Encyclopedia is not just far down this trickle; it is also a confluence of vast and disparate tricular tributaries, where the treacle becomes positively turbulent; where if something's wrong, well at least it's something.

Setting the Bloore-comma Ronald "record" straight is one of the purposes of this site but untwisting the mistakes, half truths, inventions and false implications of this mish mash is impossible. I recognize certain phrases and sentences here plagiarized from other, already dubious, sources and see them being twisted and inverted, tumbling ever further from coherence and landing with a thud in that little dictionary blurb.

What could "presented to the National Gallery" mean? Is a BA from U of T more noteworthy than an MA from Washington U? "American abstract expressionists"?! These people couldn't even get the painting image right side up. At least they didn't repeat the most common mistake of putting him in the RCA (which he spoke out strongly against).

The most ridiculous, if not surprising, thing of all is that this disaster is actually signed by it's - what shall I call her? author? compiler?

Well, it's like Ted said:

"BORDER CROSSINGS: Bloore has a reputation for being an incredibly difficult man. What was he like when you were sharing a studio and making paintings together?

TED GODWIN: Anyone who is committed is difficult because he has principles in a world that has none. Ron is not difficult. A world without principles is the difficulty...."

Oh that reminds me! We owe Ted 50 bucks.