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The Vaulter by Kenneth Danby

Artwork by Kenneth Danby, The Vaulter

Ken Danby
The Vaulter

colour serigraph
signed, dated 1976 and numbered 25/150
13 x 15.5 ins ( 33 x 39.4 cms )

Auction Estimate: $700.00$500.00 - $700.00

Price Realized $420.00
Sale date: February 19th 2015

Provenance:
Gallery Moos Limited, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
Danby was selected to design a set of Canadian Olympic coins for the 1976 Montreal Olympics at the same time he was named the first recipient of the “R. Tait McKenzie Chair for Sport” by the National Centre of Sports and Recreation in Ottawa. The result was his creation of six major watercolour studies of Olympic athletes, with each defining a specific Olympic discipline. Two years later they were published as a set of prints together with a book entitled “Danby: Images of Sport”. Appropriately, Danby once said that: “[Art] provides us with a clearer understanding of who we are, where we are, and where we have been, as human beings”*. In a 1978 article called “Athletes as Art” Hubert De Janlana described Danby's perspective: “Danby is fascinated with the parallels between the athlete and the artists, both of whom, he considers, require exceptional mental and physical discipline and unwavering dedication in order to excel.” The Olympic prints capture climactic moments of the sports they represent, which emphasizes the relation between sports and culture in Canadian society.

*Paul Duval, “Ken Danby: The New Decade”, Toronto/New York, 1984, page 154

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Kenneth Danby
(1940 - 2007) RCA

HighlightsWatch Artist

Kenneth (Ken) Danby was born on March 6, 1940 in Sault Ste. Marie, and was destined for a career as an artist. As a 12 year old, he was already talking to career advisors about how to enrol in the Ontario College of Art (Now OCADU). In 1958, he realized this dream by enrolling at the school, but became disenfranchised with institutional education and quit two years later. After briefly experimenting in abstract art, he returning to his roots in representational art, and specifically, realism, after being inspired on a trip to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo.

In 1964 Gallery Moos organized “Danby's first one-man show, which promptly sold out and set an example that was repeated and surpassed over many years”*. Today, Danby is recognized internationally and is one of Canada's best known artists. His work can be found in private, corporate and public institutions worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Danby received many awards and accolades, including his election to membership of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1976. He was also awarded with the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal by the Government of Canada, and The Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada. Danby served on many boards, including that of the National Gallery of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts.

* kendanby.ca