PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Toronto

BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Graham Metson and Cheryl Lean, editors, Alex Colville: Diary of a War Artist, 1981, page 18, a drawing of Utrecht reproduced page 151

Alex Colville’s time as a War Artist marks an important period of his artistic career. He joined the Canadian infantry in 1942, and in 1944 was sent to London and appointed an official War Artist. As early as 1917, Lord Beaverbrook had established the Canadian War Memorials Committee, which commissioned Canadian artists to record Canadian participation in battle.

Colville drew and painted his surroundings, striving to record at least a small amount of what he encountered each day, and depicted “the men, the machines, and the landscape” of the conflict. The war ended in May 1945, and Colville stayed in the Netherlands for a few months after, at which point he likely completed this drawing. The quiet landscape suggests a different atmosphere than the one Colville had been immersed in only a short time earlier. That same year, Colville assisted in organizing an exhibition of War Art in the Netherlands, and he returned to Canada in October.

Over 340 drawings and paintings by Colville are in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, which recognizes the significance of war artists in Canadian history.

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