Don Jarvis (1923–2001) was a Canadian abstract painter.

Career

Born in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

in 1923, Don Jarvis took up drawing at an early age. An aspiring cartoonist as a teenager, Jarvis enrolled at the Vancouver School of Art in 1941 and was encouraged by his teachers, B.C. Binning and Jack Shadbolt to pursue fine art. He left after a year, but returned in 1946 and completed the course in 1948. When he graduated in 1948, Jarvis won a

scholarship A scholarship is a form of Student financial aid, financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, Multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion, athleti ...

. At the suggestion of Lawren Harris, he traveled to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

to study under the abstract

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

. His time in New York produced his acclaimed, newly rediscovered collection of ''New York Drawings''. Jarvis returned to

in 1949 and became a drawing and painting instructor at the Vancouver School of Art in 1951, in 1961 becoming head of the department. He remained there for 36 years. He is known for his lyrical abstractions, and especially for his ''Encounter'' and ''Rain Forest'' series of the 1960s and 1970s. Jarvis began exhibiting in the annual B.C. Artists exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1946, and each year after that until 1958, as well as in 1960, 1963, and 1965. He was given solo exhibitions at the Vancouver Gallery in 1949, the

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) is an art museum located in Victoria, British Columbia, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Situated in Rockland, Greater Victoria, Rockland, Victoria, the museum occupies a building complex; made up of ...

, the

Edmonton Art Gallery The Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) is an art museum in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The museum occupies an building at Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton. The museum building was originally designed by Donald G. Bittorf, and B. James Wensley, alt ...

, and

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a Public university, public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It maintains three campuses in Greater Vancouver, respectively located in Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, British Columbia, Surrey, and ...

Gallery and participated in many group exhibitions His work is represented in 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 ...

, the

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Fr ...

, the

Winnipeg Art Gallery The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...

and elsewhere. In 1961, he received a

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to ...

Select Arts Fellowship and he was made a member of the

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880. History 1880 to 1890 The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Victoria of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria on 16 ...

in 1967. He was also a member of the

Canadian Group of Painters The Canadian Group of Painters (CGP) was a collective of 28 painters from across Canada who came together as a group in 1933. Its Archives is in Queen's University, Kingston. Formation The Canadian Group of Painters succeeded the disbanded Grou ...

and the British Columbia Group of Artists. In 1999,he said:

"I see the painter as an instrument, a function, a conduit of the essential unity. My work is metaphor, never simile. I make no distinction between subject and object, inner and outer, maker and viewer. I am continually surprised by what arises on the canvas or the paper. I am not a 'creator'. How can one create what is already there? I am mist, trees, rain, sun brush, canvas, weather, season, figure."

Personal life

Jarvis died of heart disease on March 22, 2001 in

Sechelt, British Columbia Sechelt (, shíshálh Language: ch'atlich) is a district municipality located on the lower Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. Approximately northwest of Vancouver, it is accessible from mainland British Columbia by a 40-minute ferry trip b ...

, leaving his wife, Gladys, their two sons, Graham and Roy, and grandchildren, Jennifer and Scott and one of the most varied Canadian art collections.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jarvis, Donald Artists from Vancouver Canadian modern painters 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters Canadian people of British descent Canadian people of French descent 1923 births 2001 deaths Emily Carr University of Art and Design alumni Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Canadian art educators Canadian expatriates in the United States Canadian abstract artists 20th-century Canadian male artists