BRITISH COLUMBIA ARTISTS  

George Henry Southwell

August 17 1865 - May 13 1961

groups



John Innes (seated) watching George Southwell painting, 1926


George Southwell was born in Spain in 1865. He emigrated to British Columbia in 1910, according to Harper, who further noted that he executed an oil painting of the first B.C. Legislature building, and that his work is in the collection of the B.C. Archives in Victoria. He exhibited at the Vancouver Exhibition in 1926 and 1930. He exhibited with the Island Arts and Crafts Society from 1931 to 1936.

A portrait of Southwell by John Ford Clymer was exhibited in the 1929 B.C. Society of Fine Arts 21st annual exhibition. An article in the Vancouver Province noted that Southwell and Clymer had a studio together in the Empire Block, before Clymer moved east.

Southwell also exhibited with the B.C. Society of Fine Arts in their May 1923 exhibition. Much later he showed work in the 1945 B.C. Artists exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

He died in Garden Bay in 1961 at the age of 95, according to B.C. Vital Statistics, although McMann gives 1958 in Biographical Index of Artists in Canada. This was possibly taken from erroneous information in a list of members of the Island Arts and Crafts Society on file at the Vancouver Art Gallery Library, which gives the same incorrect date.

Exhibitions

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
DATE EXHIBITION LOCATION

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
DATE EXHIBITION ARTWORK
1923 May 12 - 19 BCSFA   15th Annual Exhibition Portrait of Alexander McKelvie
1930 Aug. 6 - 16 VanExh   Oil Paintings & Water-colours Emerald Lake
Fraser Valley - A Quiet Backwater
Mount Cheam
The Forbidden Plateau
The Cariboo Road
The Lions, Vancouver, B.C.
1945 Sept. 22 - Oct. 21 VAG   B.C. Artists 14th Annual Portrait of the Artist's Wife
1946 July 2 - 28 VAG   Jubilee Exhibition Oolichan Harvest (Kwakiutl Indians, Pt. Hardy B.C.)

References

100 YEARS OF B.C. ART (refer to VAG58)

THE FINE ARTS IN VANCOUVER, 1886 - 1930 (refer to THOM69)

EARLY PAINTERS AND ENGRAVERS IN CANADA (refer to H70)

ISLAND ARTS AND CRAFTS SOCIETY - List of Exhibitors

ARTISTS OVERLAND (refer to BAG80)

ARTISTS IN CANADA 1982 - UNION LIST OF ARTISTS' FILES (refer to AIC82)

BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF ARTISTS IN CANADA (refer to BIAC03)
      1 reference cited for Southwell: Harper's Early Painters and Engravers in Canada.

VANCOUVER PUBLIC LIBRARY - B.C. ARTISTS FILES (refer to VPL)

CITY & PROVINCIAL DIRECTORIES 1918/20/25-29/32/34 (refer to DIR)

B.C. VITAL STATISTICS ON-LINE death (refer to BCVS)

Clippings

"A rapid preliminary survey of the walls of the B.C. Society of Fine Arts Exhibition in the School Board offices on Hamilton Street reveals two pictures of outstanding merit where all are good. One is a portrait and the other is a landscape - for want of a better name.
     The portrait is painted by G.H. Southwell and is of the late Alexander McKelvie. It is not a large picture but it stands out just as a great character stands out in a crowd of ordinary people. The painting is rugged and effective and the touch of life is in the flesh and on the eyes. It may or may not be a good presentment of the actual face, but it is a great presentment of character and those qualities that go to make a personality as distinct from a mere face. There is experience, rough wisdom, kindliness and a wide tolerance in the picture that mark it as the work of an artist of great feeling."
      From "B.C. Fine Arts Society Exhibition (First Notice)"
      Vancouver Province, May 15 1923


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