ED BARTRAM (Estate), 1938-2019

Biography

I have worked every summer for over fifty years in or near my Bartram Island studio, taking inspiration from the banded gneisses and migmatites of Georgian Bay's Thirty Thousand Islands. My prints and paintings are not just of rocks and islands but are a testament to the primordial forces that created the nucleus of the continent, the Canadian Shield. My work interprets the forces of nature as revealed on these Precambrian surfaces, made visible by the cleansing and polishing power of ice and water.

ED BARTRAM was born in London, Ontario in 1938 and died on August 25, 2019.

 

Long considered one of Canada's foremost painters and printmakers, Bartram received a B.A. from the University of Western Ontario and an M.A. in Art and Archeology from the University of Toronto. Bartram taught art at Lawrence Park Collegiate, was a Printmaking Instructor at Central Technical School, Toronto (1971-1986) and Intaglio Instructor at The Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto (1985-2003). He developed his professional art practice in the mid 1960s. In 1965, after buying an island on Georgian Bay, he reconnected with the rocks of the Canadian Shield and made them his subject matter for the rest of his career. Bartram lived and worked in King City, Ontario and Bartram Island, Georgian Bay.

 

Represented by Mira Godard Gallery since 1977, ED BARTRAM’s etchings and paintings of the unique rocks of Georgian Bay are collected across Canada and abroad, including Art Gallery of Hamilton; Art Gallery of Ontario; Museum London; Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound; Air Canada; Bell Canada; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; Canadian National Railways; Department of External Affairs, Government of Canada; Ernst and Young; Four Seasons Hotels; Fuji Bank, Japan; George Weston Ltd.; London Life Insurance; RBC Financial Group; Scotiabank; Swiss Bank; T.D. Financial and Trinity College, University of Toronto.

 

Bartram's work has been exhibited extensively including a 20 year retrospective in 2001 at the Justina Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, University of Toronto and a solo exhibition "The Eye Within" at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in 2009.

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