INSIDE THE SHOW AND BEHIND THE ART: W.J. Phillips in the West

INSIDE THE SHOW AND BEHIND THE ART: W.J. Phillips in the West

W.J. Phillips in the West includes nearly sixty works of art, including watercolours, colour woodblock prints and wood engravings. Phillips sketched across Western Canada and is particularly known for his watercolours and woodblock prints depicting Lake of the Woods, Lake Winnipeg and rural Manitoba, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest Coast. The show incorporates works from all of these regions; and ranging in date from circa 1912 before he left England to 1952 on the Sunshine Coast.

The work that sparked the idea for the show W.J. Phillips in the West was the watercolour Sointula. Phillips documented his travels to the Pacific Northwest extensively, as seen in the previous blog Sketching Trips: Walter J. Phillips on the West Coast; but he makes far more mention of his first encounters with the art and life of the native peoples to which he was previously unacquainted. Phillips relayed one story about being on the beaches of Sointula when visiting his sister Edith on Malcolm Island; however this tale also recounts his finding a native carving washed ashore. The watercolour Sointula depicts burned trees before a vast vista over the village and across Broughton Straight to Vancouver Island. The burned trees were the result of a forest fire that took place on Malcolm Island in 1925, decimating the upper areas of the island. The village was at huge risk of being engulfed in flames, as can be seen in a 1925 photograph of the fire below. Two years later when Phillips visited the island the effects of the fire could still be seen through the masses of burned trees above the town. The photograph below was taken in 1927 and gives an indication of how well Phillips’ was able to express the vibrant green of the newly grown grass juxtaposed against the wall of burned trees above. It also gives us a glimpse at what Phillips would have seen through is own eyes as he looked out across Broughton Straight.

With thanks to to the Sointula Museum for there assistance with the history of Sointula and for providing the historical photographs of the fire of 1925 and Sointula in 1927 with thanks to Doris Wirta and Lee Anderson.