William Ronald | |
|---|---|
| Born | Willam Ronald Smith August 13, 1926 |
| Died | February 9, 1998 (aged 71) Barrie, Ontario, Canada |
| Nationality | Canadian, also held citizenship in the United States |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Painters Eleven |
| Spouse(s) | Helen Higgins |
William Ronald Smith RCA (August 13, 1926 – February 9, 1998), known professionally as William Ronald, was an important Canadian painter, best known as the founder of the influential Canadian abstract art group Painters Eleven in 1954 and for his central image paintings. He was the older brother of painter John Meredith (1933–2000).[1]
History
William Ronald was a graduate of the Ontario College of Art in 1951 who quickly found that abstract painters could not get their work exhibited in Toronto galleries. Since he had previously Worked for the Robert Simpson Co. department store, he persuaded management to pair abstract paintings with furniture displays, thereby discovering a way to get the public to accept non-representational art.[2] Despite the success of that show, Abstracts at Home, Ronald resented the city's general attitude toward its artists and moved to the United States, eventually becoming an American citizen. Ronald joined the stable of artists at Manhattan's Kootz Gallery, where he was put on retainer.[3] He was quickly accepted by critics, collectors, and artists such as Franz Kline, and enjoyed a multi-year period of success.[4] Eventually, Ronald returned to Toronto, as a landed immigrant in the country of his birth, partly due to changing market conditions and partly because he could not get along with Kootz.[4] He was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts[5]
Besides painting, he became known as a CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) journalist, hosting such shows as Umbrella and As It Happens, a columnist for the Toronto Telegram, and host of a Citytv variety show. He continued to paint through the 1970s, '80s and '90s, moving to Montreal, Quebec, and then to Barrie, Ontario where he maintained an active studio. He gained some notoriety for his portrait series of Canadian Prime Ministers, a pioneering highly abstracted portrayal of heads of government opened by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in Toronto. The exhibition toured Canada, despite warnings not to exhibit the less than flattering portrait of then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. They are currently part of the permanent collection of the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery in Kitchener, Ontario.[6] Never a stranger to criticism or polemics, Ronald loved to paint in public, frequently hiring strippers and showgirls to dance around him as he painted. He continued to paint until his death in 1998 and in fact suffered a heart attack while painting Untitled.[7] He succumbed a few days later.
Selected exhibitions
- 1957-1964: Kootz Gallery, NYC
- 1960: Laing Galleries, Toronto
- 1963: Isaacs Gallery, Toronto
- 1963: Princeton University Art Gallery
- 1965: David Mirvish Gallery, Toronto
- 1970: Dunkelman Gallery, Toronto
- 1971: Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario
- 1975: Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario
- 1977-1980: Morris Gallery, Toronto
- 1984: Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
- 1985: Musée d'art de Joliette, Québec
- 1996: Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto
- 2000: Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto
Selected collections
- Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto[8]
- National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa[9]
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh
- Musée d'art de Joliette, Québec
- Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Québec[10]
- Guggenheim Museum, New York (purchased Earth, 1954, in 1958)[4]
- Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
- York University, Toronto
- Princeton University Art Gallery
- Whitney Museum of Art, New York
- Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa[11]
- Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario
- Brooklyn Museum, New York
- Edmonton Art Gallery, Alberta
- Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington
- The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville
- Stamford Museum, Stamford, CT
Notes
- ^ Nowell 2013, p. 65.
- ^ Nowell 2013, p. 67.
- ^ Nowell 2013, p. 69.
- ^ a b c Nasgaard 2007, p. 109.
- ^ "Members since 1880". Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
- ^ Nowell 2013, p. 73.
- ^ Nowell 2013, p. 75.
- ^ Ronald, William. "The Collection". ago.ca. Art Gallery of Ontario. Retrieved 2020-08-15.
- ^ "William Ronald". National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved 2020-08-15.
- ^ "William Ronald". www.collections.mnbaq.org. Retrieved 18 January 2020.
- ^ Ronald, William. "works in the collection". rmg.minisisinc.com. Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa. Retrieved 2020-08-15.
Biography
- Belton, Robert J. (1999). The Theatre of the Self: The Life and Art of William Ronald. Calgary: University of Calgary Press. ISBN 1-895176-60-3.
- Grossman, Penny-Lynn (Fall 1997). "William Ronald: Then and Now". Artfocus. 61.
- Nasgaard, Roald (2008). Abstract Painting in Canada. Douglas & McIntyre. pp. 109–112. ISBN 9781553653943. Retrieved 2020-08-15.
- Nowell, Iris (2011). P11, Painters Eleven: The Wild Ones of Canadian Art. Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 9781553655909.
- Robert McLaughlin Gallery (1975). Ronald: 25 Years. Exhibition catalogue.
External links
- National Gallery of Canada (William Ronald)
- AskArt (William Ronald)
- Artfacts.net (William Ronald)
- Canadian Art Group (Painters Eleven)