Quiet sermons for a mad world
WAYNE LARSEN
His paintings hang alongside those of the Group of Seven and other titans of Canadian art in galleries across the country, but somehow the late Goodridge Roberts has been largely overlooked when curators have mounted large travelling exhibitions.
Until now, that is.
Today's opening of 'Goodridge Roberts Revealed' at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts marks not only the first major retrospective of the legendary painter's career in 30 years, but also the first homecoming for over 100 of the shy Westmounter's works since his death in 1974.
Many of the paintings in this exhibition have been borrowed from private collections, which means that although some have appeared in various publications, most have never been seen by the public.
Generally acknowledged as one of Canada's most important artists, Roberts is known primarily for paying equal attention to traditional painting's three main disciplines-landscape, portraiture and still life. He was unflagging in his devotion to them all, and this is reflected in the images chosen to represent his life's work.
"In his mind there was no hierarchy among the three, nothing to suggest that one was more important to him than another," said curator Prof. Sandra Paikowsky, who has written extensively about Roberts over the years and whose book 'Goodridge Roberts 1904-1974' serves as an in-depth, catalogue to the current show.
Paikowski spent two years putting the exhibition together, outside of her duties teaching art history at Concordia University. "It was a lot of work but a lot o fun," she said of tracking down and gathering works from both public and private collections across Canada.
Several of these works have been lent by the artist's widow, Joan Carter Roberts, who still lives in Westmount and is pleased by the nation-wide attention the show has brought her husband. And despite his reputation as a shy man, it seems Roberts himself would have been gratified by this homage to his life's work.
"Goodridge was always happy to receive any appreciation that came his way," said Joan Roberts shortly after an advance viewing of the exhibition last week. "I think this show would have really pleased him' "
Paikowsky pointed out that part of Roberts's creative legacy was his individuality "One thing I find extremely fascinating about him is that, unlike the majority of painters of any stripe, he never worked from his imagination," she said. "He always used a model or worked directly from the landscape."
This individuality was also reflected in his unconventional method for working. While most painters tend to fuss over a canvas, repeatedly going back and reworking it until completely satisfied, Roberts had a confidence in his own ability that allowed him to complete the vast majority of his paintings in a single sitting.
"He would abandon something if he felt it was hopeless," Joan Roberts remembered. "But he almost never went back to a painting -- certainly not at all with a landscape or still life -- but sometimes with a figure he might have worked on it a second time with the model. But that was not his usual habit."
The resulting sense of spontaneity is readily apparent throughout his body of work, which is characterized by strong, broad brushstrokes rather than an obsession with minute details. For Roberts, the palette and the composition were everything.
"Even though he was considered conservative by abstract painters here, his way of making an image was very similar to that of the Automatistes;' Paikowsky said. "He addressed the canvas directly, never used any preliminary drawings or studies.
Most paintings were done in a single, continuous time and when they were finished, they were finished. That has a lot to do with the process of Automatiste painting in Montreal, but his way of coming up with an image to paint was totally different from the Autormatistes or any other form of abstract painting."
Born in Barbados to a prominent literary family (poet Sir Charles G.D. Roberts was his uncle), William Goodridge Roberts grew up in Europe and Fredericton, New Brunswick. He came to Montreal as a young man to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and would eventually support himself by teaching at the Montreal Museum's School of Art and Design. He travelled extensively, and in 1943 he left for England, where he spent 14 months working as a war artist for the Canadian government.
Roberts and second wife Joan moved into Westmount in 1956, renting a house on Grosvenor Avenue, just above Sherbrooke. After a brief stint at the University of New Brunswick, where Roberts was artist in residence, they returned in 1960 to a home on Lansdowne Avenue.
"It was the first house we'd owned," Joan Roberts said. "We bought it before the invitation came to go to New Brunswick, so we rented it for the year we were gone and only moved in when we came back."
Roberts would remain at the Lansdowne address for the last 14 years of his life.
"He was always confident as a painter," Paikowsky said. "But because he was so quiet and elegant-a gentle man-it hid the fact that he was very confident about his own work from the very beginning. He never expressed that publicly, but it was quite well known among the people who knew him best."
"Goodridge was a shy guy, very retiring:' agreed Westmount artist and architect Harry Mayerovitch, whose close friendship with Roberts dates back to the 1930s.
"He was a person I admired very much. He had a very original mind and a poetic, lyrical attitude toward painting-a great combination of a poetic personality and a disciplined mind. He had a controlled sense of colour; every brush stroke of his was very consciously put down."
But Mayerovitch also remembers a darker side that marred the end of Roberts's career.
"In the latter years he had a sad life-he wasn't able to paint," he said. "I used to see him walking along the street aimlessly at times. It was sad because this guy was a great, great talent and it was a pity to see it fizz out at the end. Some of his stuff is very haunting because it had a melancholy quality, and I suppose that was an expression of part of his personality-although he could be very funny at times and he did some interesting little cartoons in his spare time."
"In his quiet but inexorable affirmation of the enduring qualities of persons and of things, Goodridge Roberts's paintings are to be cherished as silent sermons for a world thrashing about in sensationalism and superficiality," Mayerovitch wrote in his friend's Examiner obituary in January, 1974. "His tragedy was that, in spite of the devotion of his family and his friends, he was unable to find for himself the serenity, the certainty that he was able so eloquently to transmit to us."
Currently on a cross-country tour 'Goodridge Roberts Revealed' has been organized by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection under the sponsorship of the Investors Group. It was originally intended for the MMFA ~ Benaiah Gibb Pavilion, but renovations have forced it into a smaller space across the street in the Jean-Noel Desmarais Pavilion, where it will remain, free to the public, through June 13. Sandra Paikowsky's book 'Goodridge Roberts 1904-1974' (McMichael Canadian Art Collection) is available at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Bookstore.
Wayne Larsen is Chief Reporter for Quebec's weekly Westmount Examiner newspaper and an avid painter.
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