Lucy Jarvis: Even Stones Have Life - Hardcover

Rosenfeld, Roslyn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0864928920 ISBN 13: 9780864928924

Publisher: Goose Lane Editions, 2016

Synopsis

Winner, Best Atlantic Published Book Award

Shortlisted, New Brunswick Book Award for Non-Fiction

Writing early in 1962, Lucy Jarvis said she felt "just at the threshold of beginning." Jarvis had studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in the 1920s, later becoming part of the social realist movement, committed to an art "of the people".

In 1941, Jarvis co-founded the UNB Art Centre with Pegi Nicol MacLeod, and together, they turned it into a place of creative effervescence. Passionate and single-minded, Jarvis threw herself into everything that she did and the results were nothing short of astounding. In a few short years, she and MacLeod had transformed their environment.

Yet, it wasn't until the early 1960s that the unstoppable Jarvis set out on her own. She left the art centre and headed for Paris. In four extended stays during the 1960s, she immersed herself completely, living in French, attending the open studios, and connecting with other artists.

Her retreats to Pembroke Dyke near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, during the summer months allowed her to digest her experiences, and her art took on new life. The influences of both impressionism and post-impressionism emerged in her work, and her paintings became more boldly colourful, freer — more completely her own.

Lucy Jarvis: Even Stones Have Life is the first examination of Jarvis's considerable body of work — what she painted, how she rendered it, and how her art permeated her life and her life permeated her art.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Lucy Jarvis. A gifted artist. A devoted educator. A woman of strong convictions who produced an extraordinary body of work. Though the artistic achievements of Lucy Jarvis have largely been obscured by her lack of commercial ambition and her reputation as an opinionated and eccentric character, a resurgence of interest has finally illuminated her place in Canadian art history.

A graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Lucy Jarvis co-founded, with Pegi Nicol MacLeod, the Art Centre of the University of New Brunswick in 1941. Together they envisioned a centre for all the arts, a vision that evolved in breadth and depth under Jarvis's guidance in the years after Nicol MacLeod's death, with far-reaching results.

Yet, despite her major contributions to the arts, it wasn't until twenty years later that Jarvis freed her own distinctive and powerfully expressive voice as an artist. In the early 1960s, Jarvis confessed the "she was just on the threshold of beginning." She left the Art Centre and headed for Paris. In four extended stays, she immersed herself in French cultural life, attending open studios and connecting with other artists.

During summer months, Jarvis retreated to Pembroke Dyke near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where she digested her experiences. Her art took on new life. Her once-modest social realism became influenced by impressionism and post-impressionism, emerging finally as something close to expressionism. Her subjects were her neighbours and their children, the fishermen of the community, and in later years, the landscapes and seascapes of southwest Nova Scotia.

Her paintings became more boldly colourful, freer more completely her own. Her oils showed power, sensitivity, and panache. Her sketchbooks went even further, expressing her distinctive personality as an artist.

Imbued with energy, ehr images display an astonishing understanding of colour and a rare luminosity. At once vigorous, lucid, and extraordinarily diverse, Jarvis's paintings are a rare feast for the eye, a life-giving vision to what once may have been lost. - 20160302"

From the Back Cover:

"There is no great or small art. There is only the striving to make tangible some visual experience that one feels could be thirst quenching to humanity and to oneself." Lucy Jarvis - 20160302"

About this edition

• Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0864928920
• ISBN 13: 9780864928924
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 246