Object Record
Images
Metadata
Artist |
Pepper, George |
Title |
Untitled (Eskimo Man) |
Accession # |
995.10.13 |
Object Type |
painting |
Date |
undated |
Medium |
oil |
Support |
canvas |
Dimensions |
H-46 W-38 cm |
Description |
In 1932, in his Canadian Landscape Painters, A.H. Robson noted, "George, D. Pepper, of Ottawa, is one who paints with a powerful and rhythmic sense of line. His canvases show originality in both arrangement and viewpoint, and his decorative impulse translates the landscape into a bold arrangement of line and pattern." Biographical Information: Born in Ottawa, Pepper studied at the Ontario College of Art and then abroad in France and Italy. Upon returning to Canada, he settled in Ottawa where he was employed by the Parks Branch of the city of Ottawa as a map draftsman. He was later employed as a publicity artist with the Forestry Service. In the early years of Pepper's life, he had been a reserve member of the Canadian Army's Governor General's Horse Guards, obtaining the rank of corporal in 1941. His experience as a war artist resulted in the selection of his work for illustrations in various publications about the war including The Canadian Army At War, Canada's Battle in Normandy by Col. C.P. Stacey (1946), The Canadian Army 1939-1945 by Col. C.P. Stacey (1948), a commission for illustrations for Men of Valour by Mabel Tinkiss Good (1948), and two illustrations for A Terrible Beauty by Heather Robertson (1977). Following the war he returned to the teaching staff of Ontario College of Art to take up his duties again as director of the Drawing and Painting Department and later became vice-principal of the College. In1926 he was an invited exhibitor to the Group of Seven show at the Art Gallery of Toronto. Pepper was influenced considerably by the Group of Seven in that his landscapes were decoratively realistic in presentation and strongly revealed the natural rhythm of the land, stressing pattern possibilities in various elements. He was one of the twenty-eight painters who formed the Canadian Group of Painters as a successive movement to the Group of Seven. Members of this new group continued with the tradition of exploring Canada to its remotest regions. During a few months of each year he took time to seek out his subjects and with his wife and fellow artist, Kathleen Daly Pepper. Together, they built a log studio in the Laurentians in Charlevoix County, Quebec. |