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Calgary's Art WalkWestern Themes Abound in Calgary's Hotel ArtBy Rod Chapman
The Hyatt, which opened in 2000, provides a suitably refined setting in which to display the works. Much of the hotel is integrated with 100-year-old heritage buildings featuring great sandstone columns and archways. With more than 30,000 square feet of meeting space, much of which is adorned with original works, the Hyatt provides an opulent setting for an adventure in art. 'We compiled the collection over a period of about 18 months - many of the pieces were acquired at the annual Stampede art auction and others were commissioned specially for specific spaces within the hotel,' says Connie Kirkpatrick, a Calgary art historian and consultant who travelled the country searching out works of art. In the lobby, look up. The upside-down overhead canoe was handcrafted especially for the hotel. On the wall behind the front desk is a reproduction of the Arrowsmith map of 1832 - the first complete map of Canada. The blue line depicts the travels of David Thompson, who blazed many of the early paths through Western Canada. In the elevator alcove off to the side, your eye is drawn to a miniature Malcolm MacKenzie bronze, Man of Vision. A 12-foot version of this statue commands a hillside vantage post overlooking the original Cochrane Ranch site on the outskirts of nearby Cochrane, where 'Mac' MacKenzie was raised.
'The owner's family has been in Alberta for close to 100 years, and one of the things they wanted to do was showcase the West to international visitors. The art is meant to represent the theme of travel and the opening up of the West, and the travel theme is buttressed by the landscape theme found throughout the collection,' explains Fraser Abbott, the Hyatt's Senior Sales Manager. Much of the collection on the mezzanine level celebrates the First Nations people. Many of these images are digitized versions of works by Edward S. Curtis, whose 30-year field study of North American Indian tribes commissioned by JP Morgan in the 1800s resulted in 20 volumes of text and 20 photogravure portfolios. Check out the Curtis portrait of Blackfoot chief Bear Bull on the mezzanine level - it's a classic.
Place is central to the work of Rick Berg, a self-taught artist whose sensitive depictions of light reflecting off the water in his favourite fishing holes have captured a worldwide audience. With more than 26 works on display, Berg has the honour of being the most-collected artist in the Hyatt. Berg's quiet, contemplative renderings reflect the philosophy of the collection, embodied in a statement by Henry Ward Beecher recorded in Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, first published in 1887 and included as a frontispiece in the Hyatt binder: 'Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.' Chief among the landscape artists is George Horvath, who achieves great depth in the subtle hues and luminous colours of his Western Canadian scenes, as is evident in works such as Forest Creek and Mountain Sunset. Hanging in a place of honour just outside the second-floor corridor leading to the hotel's gallery meeting room is Berg Glacier on Mt. Robson by Hubert Nanzer, a Swiss-born artist who resides and paints alternatively in Calgary, Switzerland, Costa Rica and Antigua.
Jody Skinner, a self-taught Calgary artist who works with oil on linen, has a whole meeting room on the second level devoted to her work. Skinner is known for her large canvases of western horse life. Fresh Covering of Snow, Making Tracks and Pickup Men and are just a few representative examples of her work. Hanging in stately repose outside the huge ballroom is David Thauberger's Lake Effect. Perhaps the signature piece in the entire Hyatt collection, it is buttressed by a second Thauberger work, 3 Boats Maligne Lake, mounted on the other side of the ballroom entrance. Both pieces were commissioned especially for this space. There's more, much more, at the Hyatt, from a rooftop sculpture designed only to be seen by aircraft to the artistically-themed Oriental and European suites. But perhaps it is time to move on to some of Calgary's other hotel art. After the Hyatt, take the Plus-15 walkway to the Marriott Hotel. On the way, note the three bronze statues, including a bust of Colonel James Walker by artist Hazel O'Brien, Bronze Spaceflower by Roy Leadbeater and a miniature of the Little Mermaid, the famous statue in Copenhagen, Denmark, created in 1913 by Edward Eriksen. One floor below, in the Marriott Hotel, stand back to gaze at the large green and blue canvas of the foothills south of the city. Commissioned for the Marriott's opening, the painting by Calgary artist Ken Samuelson hangs prominently in the lobby. Next, wander over to the Palliser Hotel lobby for a perusal of Colonel MacLeod Treating with the Indians, a painting by Charles Mills Sheldon depicting one of several historic meetings between Colonel James Macleod of the North West Mounted Police and Chief Crowfoot, leader of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Sheldon, who lived from 1866 to 1928, was an American painter and illustrator who travelled widely sketching for popular magazines of the day. Although he was intrigued by scenes of the frontier, there is no record of his travels in Canada, and speculation has it that his imagination may have been stirred by stories told by Mounties he met while covering the war in South Africa. Within the hotel's Oval Room hangs a painting of Mount Lefroy at Lake Louise, which came to the Palliser from the Royal Alexandra Hotel in Winnipeg and which, according to local historian Harry Saunders, was once hit by a cork shot out from a wine bottle. At the Delta Bow Valley, a short walk away, a fellowship of five prominent Western Canadian artists known as the Western Lights Group have, for the past 15 years, had an association with the hotel in which their artwork is rotated through the year and is available for purchase. Currently in the main lobby is Alpine Passage, an oil painting by Kelowna-based Roger Arndt, who also has Passages by the front door and Shadow Dancing by the bar. On the second floor, you'll find Wild Wild West and Memories by Jonn Einerssen, a prairie-based painter. There you have it. Western art abounds in Calgary hotels. You just have to know where to look. Rod Chapman is a contributing editor to Galleries West magazine. |
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Start or end your exploration of the city's hotel art at the Hyatt Regency Calgary on Centre Street and 7 Avenue South. Nowhere is Calgary's Western culture showcased more dramatically. The Hyatt collection contains more than 200 works of art by over 100 emerging and established Canadian artists, all drawn from the private reserve of one of Calgary's wealthiest citizens or commissioned especially for the hotel collection.
Ask the concierge if you can peruse An Experience in Art - a thick binder containing pictures of the hotel's art along with brief artist bios and contact information. To whet your appetite, head to the lounge where, if you're lucky, you can find a seat by the window. It's no accident that prominently displayed on one side of the room is a large Alan Bateman canvas, Canoe Under Trees, and on the other side hangs an historic train, Fox Marsh Siding, painted by Christopher Pratt. The sense of place fundamental to the work of Pratt, perhaps Newfoundland's most famous artistic son, and Bateman (son of Robert), whose portraits of contemporary stillness are steeped in mood and momentary light, is a central, enduring theme of the Hyatt collection. Transportation also figures prominently, with many of the works on the lower levels depicting canoes, trains, horses or people walking toward a destination, while on the upper levels aircraft are prominently featured. Underpinning the transportation theme are the ubiquitous landscapes - almost everywhere you look is an artistic interpretation of Western Canadian scenery.
Representing the First Nations theme, Calgary artist Paul van Ginkel has two portraits utilizing gold leaf displayed high on the west entry wall. Also prominently displayed throughout the hotel is the work of Bern Will Brown, who paints from a log home north of the Arctic Circle. The Bush Pilot and The Breakup Patrol are just two of several works by Brown, who is also noted for his stylistic portrayal of the Northern Lights.
Also notable are the works of Harry Palmer, a photographer gaining prominence for using 3D computer wizardry to softly distort his images of prairie landscapes (such as Prairie Sunrise). Rebecca Perehudoff, a third-generation painter of prairie landscapes (Persian Lillies), has more than 50 solo shows to her credit. Another famous artist offspring is Nicolas de Grandmaison, whose grandfather was the well-known portrait artist and among whose body of work is the contemplative Enfold, Saskatchewan.