London Regionalism

movement late 1950s-1960s London, Ontario Canada

London Regionalism grew up in London, Ontario, in the late 1950s and 1960s, when a circle of artists - among them Greg Curnoe, Jack Chambers, Tony Urquhart, Murray Favro and Ron Martin - decided to stay home rather than move to the metropolitan art centers. They made their own city and daily life the subject and center of their work, and refused both the authority of the big-city art world and the idea of joining movements. The name itself was adopted in defiance, after a Toronto critic used "regionalism" derisively. National recognition came with the National Gallery of Canada's 1968 exhibition Heart of London. Curnoe insisted the scene had nothing to do with 1930s American Regionalism; critics called it Canada's first regional liberation front.

The Tribuna of the Uffizi (Zoffany)
The Tribuna of the Uffizi (Zoffany)Public domain (credit: Johann Zoffany) · source

Defining characteristics

  • The artist's own city and daily life - local places, domestic interiors, familiar streets - as subject
  • Bright, saturated color with written text woven directly into the image
  • Diary-like, time-specific observation of everyday life rather than heroic or universal themes
  • Marked individual styles - from Chambers' cool perceptual realism to Favro's projected paintings - held together by place
  • Multimedia crossover between painting, film, sound and performance within one local scene

Key figures

  • Greg Curnoe (1936-1992) — Painter and catalyst whose studios and Region magazine (1961) anchored the scene
  • Jack Chambers (1931-1978) — Painter-filmmaker whose "perceptual realism" and The Hart of London gave the scene a theory
  • Tony Urquhart (1934-2022) — One of Canada's pioneering abstractionists and a founding member of the group
  • Murray Favro (b. 1940) — Sculptor of projected paintings, reconstructions and mechanical flying machines
  • Ron Martin (b. 1943) — Abstract painter who generated paintings through conceptually defined series

Example works

  • The Hart of London — Jack Chambers (1968-1970)
  • Country Road — Murray Favro (1971-1972)
  • Self Portrait #4 — Greg Curnoe (1992)

Sources

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