Arthur Fortescue McKay, best known as Art McKay L.L. D. (September 11, 1926 – August 3, 2000) was a

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

and a member of the

Regina Five Regina Five is the name given to five abstract painters, Kenneth Lochhead, Arthur McKay, Douglas Morton, Ted Godwin, and Ronald Bloore, who displayed their works in the 1961 National Gallery of Canada's exhibition "Five Painters from Regina". ...

. Most of his work is abstract.

Early life and education

McKay was born in Nipawin, Saskatchewan. His father was Joseph Fortescue McKay, a son of Angus McKay whose own grandfather was the younger John Richards McKay and whose grandmother was Harriet Ballenden. This and other ancestry would qualify McKay as an Anglo-Métis artist in Saskatchewan and in Canada. His mother, Georgina Agnes Newnham, was a daughter of another historical figure in Saskatchewan, the Anglican Bishop of Saskatchewan, Jervois Newnham. From an early age, McKay drew landscape. His training in art began at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art (now the

Alberta University of the Arts The Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts) is a public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a differen ...

) in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

(1946–1948), and later at the

Académie de la Grande Chaumière The Académie de la Grande Chaumière () is an art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris, France. History The school was founded in 1904 by the Catalan painter Claudio Castelucho on the rue de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, near the A ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

(1949–1950),

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

(1956–1957), and The

Barnes Foundation The Barnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, ...

in Merion,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

(1956–1957).

Career

In 1952, McKay joined the staff of the Regina Art School (today

University of Regina The University of Regina is a public university located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Founded in 1911 as a private denominational high school of the Methodist Church of Canada, it began an association with the University of Saskatchewan as a j ...

).J. Russell Harper.
Painting in Canada: A History
'. University of Toronto Press; 1977. . p. 352ff. From 1951 to 1956, he was a lecturer in art at the University of Saskatchewan.Barry Lord.
The history of painting in Canada: toward a people's art
'. NC Press; 1974. . pp. 209–210 While there, McKay helped organize a series of Emma Lake Artists' Workshops in rural Saskatchewan.Lora Senechal Carney.
Canadian Painters in a Modern World, 1925–1955: Writings and Reconsiderations
'. McGill-Queen's University Press; 2017. . p. 254ff. He became an associate professor in art there between 1956 and 1974, and director from 1964 to 1967. In 1978, he was an associate professor of art at the University of Regina. McKay received national and international attention as one of the painting group the

. The group's paintings were exhibited at the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

in 1961 in a show titled "Five Painters from Regina".James M. Pitsula.
New World Dawning: The Sixties at Regina Campus
'. University of Regina Press; 2008. . p. 46ff. He was influenced in the 1960s by

Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American painter. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense ...

,"Arthur MacKay"
''The Canadian Encyclopedia''. whom he, Ron Bloore, and

Roy Kiyooka Roy Kenzie Kiyooka (January 18, 1926January 8, 1994) was a Canadian painter, poet, photographer, arts teacher. Biography A Nisei, or a second generation Japanese Canadian, Roy Kenzie Kiyooka was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and raised in Cal ...

invited to the Emma Lake Artists' Workshop as guest artist in 1959.
A Companion to American Art
'. Wiley; 30 January 2015. . p. 302ff. McKay's best known works are his scraped enamel circular and rectangular "mandalas", in which he uses relaxing, contemplative imagery to depict ideas related to

Zen Buddhism Zen (; from Chinese: '' Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka ph ...

. McKay was included in

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...

's 1964 " Post-Painterly Abstraction" exhibition. In the 1970s, he continued to paint abstractions but also reintroduced the landscape in his work. In 1997, the

MacKenzie Art Gallery The MacKenzie Art Gallery (MAG; ) is an art museum located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The museum occupies the multipurpose T. C. Douglas Building, situated at the edge of the Wascana Centre. The building holds eight galleries totaling to of ...

mounted a national travelling exhibition, "Arthur F. McKay: A Critical Retrospective". At the exhibition opening, McKay said: "If I had known I was that good, I would have painted more." His work is in many collections, both public and private, such as the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa and

Art Gallery of Guelph The Art Gallery of Guelph (AGG), formerly the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, is a public gallery and adjoining Sculpture garden in Guelph, Ontario. Its collection consists of over 9,000 works. The AGG is a nonprofit organization which focuses on r ...

. McKay died on August 3, 2000, in

Squamish, British Columbia Squamish (; , ; 2021 census population 23,819) is a community and a district municipality in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, located at the north end of Howe Sound on the British Columbia Highway 99 ...

, at the age of 73.

Honours and memberships

* Honorary Doctor of Laws,

with the other members of the

(2001);

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:McKay, Arthur 1926 births 2000 deaths Artists from Saskatchewan People from Nipawin, Saskatchewan Alumni of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters 20th-century Canadian male artists Canadian abstract artists