The New Year is a perfect time to survey this celebrated series by Canadian artist Alex Colville.
Colville’s “Book of Hours: Labours of the Months for a New Year” is a group of 12 small paintings depicting significant personal moments from his year just ended. The images often focus on quiet, ordered work like pruning an apple tree in January. The paintings were done in 1974 and then released as a print portfolio in 1979.
Colville wanted to continue the medieval custom of making “Books of Hours” and “Labours of the Months,” which originally were devotional books. His 12 images, one for each month of the year, are based on traditions found in the medieval illuminated manuscripts. An example from 1515, below.
In an essay on Colville’s Labours of the Month, the National Gallery of Canada says
“There is nothing accidental in a Colville painting, no superfluous details; everything has a meaning. The (January) work of culling, of cutting away dead material to assist the birth of the new, is fitting for a suite of images rooted in a form developed for a book of prayers.” (Read the full essay here)
For the 1979 print series, Colville added this Serigraph, Hotel Maid (9.5 x 8):
Alex Colville (1920-2013 ) is one of Canada’s most distinguished artists. Painter, draughtsman, engraver and muralist, Colville captured everyday life in Canada with a style that has been characterized as Realism, Magic Realism and Photo Realism More on him here.
Happy New Year to all of you, with huge thanks for following me on these travels through Canadian art.
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And huge thanks to you, for offering us these celebrations that teach us so much, and enrich us so much.
Thank you so much, and the best of the New Year to you. Keep walking, we all enjoy those jaunts.
His talent is beyond amazing. There is such emotion in each of his pieces and it draws you into the art as a participant. He is a Canadian who should always be feted and remembered.
I so agree with how emotion imbues his work, despite that on first glance, his work appears almost clinical. That’s the magic, I think.