BCSFA FCA FRSA
1889 - 1971
Canadian
Victoria Rooftops
gouache on paper
signed
17 x 22 1/2 in, 43.2 x 57.2 cm
Estimate: $2,000 - $3,000 CAD
Sold for: $1,000
Preview at:
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the Artist by a Private Collection, Victoria
By descent to the present Private Collection, Vancouver
LITERATURE
Christina Johnson-Dean, The Life and Art of Ina D.D. Uhthoff, 2012, similar work reproduced pages 80 and 83.
Ina D.D. Uhthoff (née Campbell) was originally from Scotland, and attended the Glasgow School of Art, receiving training from Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Maurice Grieffenhagen. She came to Canada in 1913, where she met her husband, fellow Glaswegian Ted Uhthoff. He was enlisted to serve in the War and the couple returned to Scotland before moving back to Canada in 1923 with two small children, settling in the Kootenays. Before long, Ted began to suffer from PTSD and Ina was forced to become the breadwinner for the family. She established herself as an art teacher in Victoria and moved there in 1925 with the children following later.
In Victoria Uhthoff quickly became central to the art community, and only a year after her arrival established the Victoria School of Art in 1926 at 620 View Street. She formed a relationship with another Glasgow School of Art transplant Charles H. Scott and his newly formed Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts, which enabled students to transfer credits between the two institutions. She partnered in 1928 with Emily Carr to bring Seattle mystical painter Mark Tobey to Victoria who offered a master class at both her and Emily’s studios.
Along with four other artists, in 1944 Uhthoff opened “The Little Centre”, a small gallery on Yates Street. This gallery then moved to Broughton Street and was renamed the Art Centre of Greater Victoria. In 1951 the gallery moved to Spencer Mansion on Moss Street, which eventually became the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria as it is known today.
Over the next couple of decades until her passing in 1971 Uhthoff remained actively involved in the gallery as an exhibiting artist and fundraiser on the board of directors. She continued to teach and wrote an art criticism column for the Victoria Daily Colonist. In 1972 the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria honoured Ina’s legacy and indelible contributions to the city with a posthumous memorial exhibition of her work.
Though this work is not dated, the scene is similar in style and subject to a work shown at her 1962 solo show at the AGGV which featured work from the previous decade. It is painted from the same vantage point as her larger work “Suburbia” in the collection of the University of Victoria Legacy Art Gallery.
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