Wide Inside (AC-33) by Kenneth Campbell Lochhead
Preview this item at:
Ken Lochhead
Wide Inside (AC-33)
acrylic on canvas
signed and dated 1964 on the reverse
68 x 80 in ( 172.7 x 203.2 cm )
Estimated: $25,000.00 - $35,000.00
Gift of the Artist’s family
Collection of The Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2006
Ted Fraser, "Kenneth Lochhead: Garden of Light", Regina, 2005, page 54
Dating to 1964, this work was painted during the height of Lochhead’s career as an abstract artist. The early sixties were highly active and successful for the painter on a national and international level. Lochhead had been painting in an entirely non-representational manner since the beginning of the decade, and was included in the 1961 National Gallery exhibition, Five Painters from Regina, who were considered to be at the forefront of Canada’s modern art movement. He had been participating in the Emma Lake Professional Artists’ Workshops since 1955, with guest workshop leaders including Abstract Expressionist painters and critic Clement Greenberg. Lochhead’s abstract work of the 1960s and 1970s, such as "Wide Inside (AC-33)", bear resemblances to the Colour-Field painting movement, which had recently established itself in New York. The curved blocks of black, blue, orange and red radiate from the centre of the composition, creating a pentagon shape within the negative space of the bare canvas.
The year 1964 was a significant one for Lochhead, as it marked a shift in his work from gestural to hard-edge abstraction. Toward the end of 1963, he had abandoned using masonite as a support, in favour of adjustable rolls of cotton duck canvas. Lochhead also abandoned textural enamel paint for the new transparency of water-based acrylic, a preferred medium among Colour-Field painters. The artist corresponded frequently with Clement Greenberg during 1963-64, discussing formalism, the international art scene, and exhibition opportunities. Lochhead and Kenneth Noland were both featured in Clement Greenberg’s 1964 influential exhibition "Post-Painterly Abstraction", curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and subsequently the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toronto.
This artwork is being sold to benefit the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG)-Qaumajuq in establishing an endowment fund to support more diverse representation in the permanent collection, beginning with contemporary Canadian art. Cowley Abbott is pleased to donate our selling commission to the fund as part of the sale.
Register to Bid
To participate in our auction by telephone or absentee bid, please register below. You may also download a bid form and email a completed copy to [email protected] Bidding registration must be submitted by 12:00 Noon EDT on Thursday, May 30th
Bid in Person Telephone Bid Absentee Bid Download Bid Form
Already have an account? Sign-In
Register to Bid Online
To register to bid online during our live auctions you will be taken to a different website hosted by Auction Mobility. A new account, separate from your regular Cowley Abbott Client Profile, will need to be created prior to online bidding registration.
Bidding registration must be submitted by 12:00 Noon EDT on Thursday, May 30th
Please Note: All bidding through the Auction Mobility site and apps is subject to a 21% Buyer's Premium
Get updates or additional information on this item
Watch This Item Ask a Question Request Condition ReportShare this item with your friends
Kenneth Campbell Lochhead
(1926 - 2006) Regina Five, Order of Canada
Ken Lochhead was born in Ottawa, in 1926. His interest in art began during his high school years. He was struggling in school, particularly with Latin. So, Lochhead and his grandmother persuaded his parents to enroll him in a summer studio course at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. He earned a Matriculation Certificate from Glebe Collegiate in 1944, and took a commercial art course at the Ottawa Technical School of Fine Arts. Continuing his education, Lochhead attended a four-year undergraduate program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia where he studied illustration, painting, and watercolour. Due to generous scholarships, Lochhead was able to travel and study throughout Europe in 1948.
In 1950, Lochhead was invited to teach drawing and painting courses at Carleton University in Ottawa. In the same year Lochhead won a painting contest sponsored by O'Keefe Brewing Company for his oil painting titled "Fishermen" (1949). The art competition was for artists between the ages of eighteen and thirty. He won $1000 and gained significant publicity and was invited to be the Director of the School of Art at Regina College. At only twenty-four years old, Lochhead was employed to establish the school and facilitate the Norman MacKenzie art collection. Immediately, Lochhead was inspired by his new location and began to explore his new home through painting and sketching. Lochhead was most curious about the villages and farm homes near Regina and began depicting them in his work.
The Emma Lake Professional Artists' Workshops, a summer artist program affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon was taught by Augustus Kenderdine. In 1955, Lochhead, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus (now the University of Regina), began teaching at the summer program.
His 1957 mural "Flight and Its Allegories" at the international airport terminal in Gander, Newfoundland, sparked Lochhead's interest in depicting birds in his works. In 1964, Lochhead moved to Winnipeg to begin teaching at the School of Fine Art at the University of Manitoba.
In 1960, Lochhead exhibited with Arthur McKay, Douglas Morton, Ted Godwin and Ronald Bloore in "Five Painters from Regina" at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Fondly known as 'The Regina Five', this group of abstract painters, along with Clifford Wiens, became an active artists community in Saskatchewan.
While in Winnipeg, Lochhead's paintings were still inspired by the natural world. By 1970, he began applying paint with a spray gun in a large downtown warehouse that had been converted into a studio. Lochhead continued to use this method during his time spent teaching at York University in Toronto, but eventually turned to other media upon his move to Ottawa to teach at the University of Ottawa in 1975. No longer using a spray gun, Lochhead began using oil, enamel, watercolor, and pastels to explore birds and the natural environment that surrounded him. Interested in the playful nature of birds he would often drive out of the city to draw natural landscapes. He also spent time exploring Ottawa's gardens and the Arboretum at the Central Experimental Farm. Finally, Lochhead and his wife purchased a cottage adjacent to the Gatineau River in 1983. With help from his son, Lochhead built a studio in the woods near his house where he could observe the forest and incorporate it into his paintings.
In the early 1990s, Lochhead began to paint more figurative images based off of photographs. He painted portraits of random strangers, politicians, and eventually professional sports teams. Until his death in 2006, Lochhead painted the world around him in his studio in the forest or while on holiday in the Canadian Rockies and the Maritime Provinces. Lochhead has exhibited throughout Canada and the United States, including numerous solo exhibitions. He has been given the honour of the Order of Canada and the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts.
Literature Sources:
Joanne Lochhead, Colour is of the Senses. University of Regina, 2018
A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume I: A-F, compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1977
We extend our thanks to Danie Klein, York University graduate student in art history, for writing and contributing this artist biography.
