Ivan Eyre (1935-2022)
“Woman in Red & Blue” 1957
Oil on Canvas
This 1957 Canvas was gifted to the couple Eyre was living with in Winnipeg in 1956 & 1957. Very few works from Eyres early career have survived from this period. It is widely known Eyre destroyed the majority of his early work so this painting is one of the only times a painting of this era has been offered to the public.
Eyre graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1957 (the same year this painting was created), and is only 2 years before he became a professor of fine arts at U of M in 1959. This painting was likely a thank you gift to the couple he lived with during his school years.
Eyre moved to the United States in the later half of 1957 so this also helps us date this to the first 6 months of 1957. There are a couple other paintings in the permanent Ivan Eyre Gallery at the Assiniboine Park Conservatory in Winnipeg also from 1957. Those two look a little different than this one so we think those might be from later 1957 when Ivan’s style became changing.
Biography:
Ivan Eyre was born in 1935 in the small farming community of Tullynet in Saskatchewan. His Father was a rural school teacher. Ivan drew and painted from a very young age and was encouraged by his family.
After studying at the Saskatchewan Art Center, Saskatchewan Technical Collegiate and the University of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and North Dakota, Eyre graduated in 1957, and in 1959 was hired to teach drawing by the University of Manitoba, School of Fine Art. Eyre eventually became a full time professor at the U of M School of Art and taught painting and drawing until his retirement in 1993.
A self styled radical who has created a unique world using landscape interiors and the human figure, Eye’s reputation as a non conformist was long established. Called an expressionist, a surrealist and a magical realist and even a super realist, he always saw himself as a self styled radical.
As a young artist Eyre eschewed the mainstream, at the time the colourful drips and smears of abstract expression. Building solidly detailed, finely tuned, beautifully crafted surreal pictures of men contrasted against the land they came from. He also painted interior scenes and crafted small, but powerful sculptures of people. His self portraits were remarkable and were described as shockingly honest searches for his own character.
Eyre’s work appears in the collections of 91 national and international corporations, hundreds of private collectors in Canada, the US and Europe, 35 public institutions including the National Gallery of Canada.
If interested in purchasing this painting, please email:
By: Patricia Barrett
Getting fine artwork into the hands of art lovers and collectors has just been made a lot easier with the opening of an art gallery in Gimli.
Nolan Sigvaldason, who grew up in Arborg and has been selling high-end artworks for nearly 15 years, said the opening of the gallery will give the public an opportunity to view and purchase investment-quality art. “One of the main reasons I decided to open a gallery in Gimli was to get more Manitobans and local people interested in owning art,” said Sigvaldason, who celebrated the launch of his gallery last Friday evening and is in the process of completing his website. “I have been dealing in art for a number of years and I’ve bought and sold a lot of art outside Manitoba and in other provinces and countries, but I’ve always hoped that more Manitobans would think about owning and investing in artwork.”
Since 2010 Sigvaldason has been helping art enthusiasts, collectors, dealers and corporations obtain fine artwork for their collections. The gallery offers free verbal appraisals, written appraisals for insurance purposes, assists with estate sales and professionally packages (or crates) and ships artwork to any location in Canada or abroad.
The gallery specializes in historical Canadian art and currently has several paintings by Canada’s Group of Seven landscape painters, who produced influential works in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as works by Emily Carr, Ukrainian Canadian sculptor Leo Mol, Ivan Eyre and Indigenous Group of Seven artists such as Noval Morrisseau. In addition to paintings, the gallery has screenprints, Inuit soapstone sculptures and rarer items such as monoprints (a type of printmaking) and woodblock prints.
“We have several pieces by Walter J. Phillips [Canadian painter and printmaker], who created around 50 woodblock prints,” said Sigvaldason. “He did several pieces of Gimli and surrounding areas, including the dock, and they’re quite valuable today. There are many things to consider with each, including how many were made — as that varied — their importance and condition. For example, WJ’s woodblock of Hnausa Dock is significantly more valuable and sought after than his Gimli Dock
woodblock mainly because of its importance to WJ’s career and what awards he won using Hnausa.”
Not only can people buy art from Sigvaldason’s gallery, but they can also potentially have the gallery sell their own art. People with artwork they think might be worth something can contact Sigvaldason and his staff for an appraisal. “We’d look at current values and determine what the best course of action would be to sell it,” said Sigvaldason. “Oftentimes, after a family member passes away, a family likes to keep a few pieces for themselves if there’s a large collection. For the rest, we can figure out what to do with the pieces. We have a number of options for selling in our gallery. We purchase art all the time, and we can consign some of the more expensive pieces and sell other pieces at auction.”
The fine art world has always been subject to forgery because of potential lucrative payouts, and it requires art dealers to know their material and have a network of experts with whom to consult. Sometimes, however, the experts themselves can be fooled by forgeries. The Vancouver Art Gallery’s acquisition of 10 paintings by Group of Seven member J.E.H. MacDonald, for example, turned out to be forgeries after an examination of handwriting and paint that wasn’t available at the time of the works’ creation. The gallery launched an investigative exhibit into the provenance (previous ownership) of the works and how the forgery was discovered.
Sigvaldason, who is a self-taught art specialist and who has family members in the art industry, said it can take a “lot of research” to determine whether a piece is authentic or fake. “There’s not an art dealer in the world that probably hasn’t made a mistake or two along the way, and you can learn from them. You have to do a lot of research,” said Sigvaldason. “I have a great team; we have many years of experience and we consult with other art dealers, galleries, museums or the artists themselves if they’re still alive. I’m connected to many galleries and art dealers right across Canada, so if there’s something I’m not sure of, I pick up the phone and talk to the expert in that area.”
People who sell their art often prefer to remain anonymous, which can be challenging when assessing the provenance of a piece. Provenance may be important for determining authenticity. “However, we can usually tell within a minute or so if something looks off or not, and the back of the painting often tells just as much as the front,” he said.
Sigvaldason also has hundreds of Canadian art books for reference on well-known artists, groups and movements, he said, and there are certain clues that may present with a piece of artwork that could raise some doubt.
Fine art can at times be pricey. Those experiencing sticker shock should keep in mind that high-end works represent an investment that can increase in value over time for the owner or their descendants, said Sigvaldason. People should eschew picking up something mass-produced from a big box store as that has no value or meaning other than aesthetic appeal.
As a better alternative, people should look at purchasing art from local artists, said Sigvaldason, as their art has significantly more meaning, and the inherent value of those works will be retained or could increase over time. Sigvaldason Fine Art is located at 70 Centre St. in Gimli.
Link to article: https://www.expressweeklynews.ca/split_document.aspx?doc=ExpressWeeklyNews011824.pdf#page=1