Vancouver: Lights Out – Canadian Art in the 1960s

Claude Breeze’s 1964 painting, “Lovers in a Landscape #3 Mandala,” is one of 90 works in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s new exhibit on Canadian modernism in the 1960s.

Maxwell Bates, Beautiful B.C., 1966

The tumultuous 1960s shook up Canadian culture, creating new vibrancy in art across the country.   The exhibition  “Lights Out!” celebrates the verve and energy of the decade as expressed on canvas.

Joyce Wieland, Tragedy in the Air, or Plane Crash, 1963, oil on canvas

Canadian painting during the sixties was diverse and ranged from the colourfield works of Jack Bush and bold optical images of Claude Tousignant, to the haunting figurative works of Jack Chambers and Jean-Paul Lemieux. Drawing on the Gallery’s rich collection of paintings from this era, Lights Out! showcases works by these painters and others, including Suzanne Bergeron, Greg Curnoe, Paterson Ewen, Yves Gaucher, Ann Kipling, Roy Kiyooka, Michael Morris, Michael Snow (whose important 1963 canvas provides the title for this exhibition), Takao Tanabe, Joyce Wieland and many others –Vancouver Art Gallery

Takao Tanabe, Untitled (Passing Rainbow), 1968, acrylic on canvas

In the header on this blog’s home page, Michael Morris, Untitled, 1967, acrylic on canvas