Recognized as of the greatest artists of the mid-twentieth century, David Milne (1882-1953) was the first to develop the multiple-plate colour drypoint. Decades later, John Hartman (b. 1950) was inspired to take up the technique and has produced a remarkable body of prints that shares much in common with Milne’s oeuvre, in aesthetic, geographic, and spiritual terms.
Cities, the driving forces behind the economic and cultural engines of a country, are very much on the minds of Canadians in the first decade of the 21st century. The new paintings of John Hartman, one of Canada’s major contemporary painters, offer an artistic vision of cities as living organisms, deeply intertwined with the natural terrain of a geographic site.
Big North: The Paintings of John Hartman catalogues a major exhibition of John Hartman’s works. Organized by the London Regional Art and Historical Museum and the Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, the exhibition traveled throughout Canada from 1999 to 2001.
