Lot 9: Bertram Charles (B.C.) Binning 1909 - 1976

Bertram Charles (B.C.) Binning 1909 - 1976 Canadian oil on canvas Nocturnal Fountain 56 1/4 x 28 1/4 inches 142.9 x 71.7 centimeters signed and dated 1952 and on verso titled on the BC Artists' Exhibition label Literature:Doreen Walker, B.C. Binning: A Retrospective, Fine Arts Gallery, University of British Columbia, 1973, listed page 35 Nicholas Tuele, B.C. Binning: A Classical Spirit, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1986, unpaginated Provenance:Acquired directly from the Artist By descent to the present Private Collection, Vancouver Exhibited:Vancouver Art Gallery, 22nd Annual BC Artists' Exhibition, 1953 Fine Arts Gallery, University of British Columbia, B.C. Binning: A Retrospective, March 13 - 31, 1973, catalogue #35 B.C. Binning was an important seminal figure in the West Coast art scene. His teaching career began in 1933 with his appointment as an instructor at the Vancouver School of Art, then he continued on to the University of British Columbia in 1940 as an Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture, followed by his establishing and becoming the Head of the Department of Fine Arts there in 1955. He was a cultural catalyst in Vancouver at the time, helping to found the UBC Art Centre Gallery and the Nitobe Memorial Garden, as well as organizing the UBC Festival of the Contemporary Arts. He exhibited internationally: 1950 in a survey of Canadian Art in Washington, DC, 1952 at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, 1955 in Venezuela and Washington, 1957 in Milan and 1958 at the Brussels World's Fair. Also involved with integrating art into architecture, he designed murals for the facade of the BC Hydro building, the interior of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Granville and Dunsmuir branch. He was part of an Art in Living group that included Lawren Harris, whose purpose was to inform the public about the benefits of good design. He was a vital formative part of the West Coast scene in both art and architecture, affecting generations of students and the cultural scene as a whole, and his influence also extended nationally and internationally. He served on the Visual Arts Committee of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa from 1964 to 1967, and was on the Canada Council's Advisory Panel for the Arts from 1965 to 1969. The 1950s were an important time in Binning's work, in which he explored nautical themes. Binning had a sailboat, a 20-footer called the Skookumchuck, and he and his wife Jessie spent many hours wandering the coast, exploring coves and inlets - observing the life of the sea. Binning was greatly interested in all the nautical objects he saw - buoys, lights, ropes, flags and signals - and used them as motifs in his work, such as in the 1950 oil Night Harbour. Black background works were inspired by his experience of the sea at night, coming into the harbour and seeing, as he related, "all this black, velvety summer night.....with all these signal lights flashing, and neon signs.....it's really quite stirring." The drawn line was important to Binning - two of his four years of study at The Vancouver School of Art during the late 1920s and early 1930s were devoted exclusively to drawing. This was reinforced during a period of study in England in the late 1930s, when one of his instructors was sculptor Henry Moore, to whom drawing was a fundamental essential. Binning used geometrical forms in his work, but not in a coldly mathematical way - his highly individual sense of line prevented that. He took a lyrical approach to line and form - there is order yet playfulness in his work. Paintings such as this large and superlative work display his unique sense of line, and show a finely tuned balance between formalism and playfulness. Nocturnal Fountain is a classic work from the 1950s, full of symbolic, abstracted forms derived from the world around him. As Nicholas Tuele writes, Binning's paintings are "universal statements informed by local experience." In this painting, shapes and lines against the black background pop forward with a jaunty playfulness, and the over-all impression is of one of simplicity and grace of form. The viewer's eye follows the symbols, which activate and interact on the black surface, which recedes into the depths. Forms are accentuated with bright and lively colours - red, blue, yellow, orange and green - and are connected by delicate, refined white lines. Nocturnal Fountain, elegant and graceful, emanates a quiet, joyous radiance, making it singularly unforgettable.