Prince George was already familiar to the eyes of George Killy. The local industrialist was a man of means and a man of vision, so he wanted to know what Prince George looked like through the eyes of someone far removed.
Not just any eyes. Killy wanted to see his city through the lens of someone ultra skilled at interpreting and visually representing the scenes and objects of the world. He called on master artist David Thauberger.
In the 1990s, Thauberger came to Prince George on the Killy commission, took pictures, looked through historic collections, wandered the streets, and let his senses gather in the surroundings. The result was a string of his signature bright, bold, dominating images - all of definitive Prince George structures.
Decades went by and these paintings were seen by few people. Tonight, that changes. These works have come home, for an exhibition at the Two Rivers Gallery. Killy and Thauberger will be in the room to unveil their passion project together.
"These are almost heroic portraits in the way that great generals and cultural figures are painted," said curator George Harris. "The buildings themselves take up the majority of the frame. They are the main focus. It says something about their importance, about their architecture, about their aesthetic and about their place in our thinking. We have had relationships with these buildings. There is something human and democratic and everyman about how these buildings play a role in our lives specifically in this city. They are like a neighbour or a friend. If you live here, you grow up with them or have relations with them."
Knox United Church, Northern Hardware, some of these images you can still find today. Some however - King George V Elementary School, the old Experimental Farm's rainbow barn, the original City Hall, a sternwheeler ship, The Outrigger Restaurant - these are gone from the landscape.
Even Harris has his personal connections to these structures.
"The house we now live in used to be right there," he said pointing to a spot on the Knox United Church painting. The owner of the home designed it himself and refused to raze it when the church came to him hoping to expand. He did consent to sell them the land if the home could be moved. It was, the house eventually came into the ownership of Harris who knew nothing of this history, and the church expansion of that era became the modern daycare in which Harris's daughter attended.
The buildings have a story, the paintings have a story, the people who interact with them have a story. The only thing the exhibition lacked was a literal story about these interwoven metaphorical stories. Since Killy was such a significant figure, Thauberger was such a significant figure, the gallery presenters felt it essential to bring an equally significant wordsmith into the event.
No writer has had a heavier impact or delved so deeply into the self-conscious Prince George psyche as famed novelist and cultural analyst Brian Fawcett. It was he they convinced to bring text to the exhibition.
"Brian has a big history in Prince George, so does George, and because of these paintings so does David Thauberger. It was quite a powerful confluence," said Harris. "Brian wrote quite a substantial essay to go with the exhibition, so I took some small excerpts from that and put them on the label cards accompanying each painting. They are quite personal writings. They are not neutral in the way I would write the descriptive labels for the art we present. They are definitely of the man who wrote them."
Fawcett relished this opportunity. "As always, I want the whole story, not the one I'm supposed to write," he said during his research process.
Harris and his gallery colleagues knew they had worked this into one of the most compelling all-local exhibitions in their history. They weren't going to have it fall through ephemeral cracks.
"With Brian's essay as text, we are doing a full-colour catalogue to go with the show," said Harris. "It is large-format and hardcover. It is the most ambitious publication we have undertaken to date."
It paints a thick artistic frame around Prince George's 100th anniversary as a registered municipality, and that is not a coincidence.
"George Killy mentioned to me on a number of occasions over the years that he had these paintings, most of them he owns himself, and that he was sure they could be collected into an interesting exhibition for Prince George," Harris said. "The painting of the sternwheeler he donated to the gallery in 2001, so we already had that as a starting point. He has such a family history and personal history with Prince George, and he has always been such a supporter of the gallery, so the conversations started way back then, and involving (managing director) Peter Thompson, started to take a stronger shape as the anniversary discussions for the city started to ramp up. We all thought it was a wonderful fit to have them up as we celebrate the city's centennial. George just made it all so easy to do."
There were some question marks around logistics when Thauberger was made the star of a two-gallery travelling super-exhibition in Saskatchewan right, as it turned out, at the same time as this show was being scheduled. The MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina and the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon co-produced that Thauberger retrospective, but the Prince George paintings were eventually not among those selected. They were free for this Prince George purpose.
Therefore, Thauberger has two A-list art shows on in different Canadian provinces at the same time.
"It has been a huge time for him," Harris said.
"Thauberger is a very notable Canadian artist, George Killy chose him for that reason, and these paintings are very indicative of the style and medium in which he works. And we get to see that used as an insight into our own community. It is a sense of self, through the eyes of someone who isn't from here. Add to that the impressions of Brian Fawcett, and it is another level of commentary on who we are as a community. I think, in Prince George, we are far too quick to pull down buildings rather than renovate or recycle them for historical preservation. We are in danger of losing some of those important pieces of architecture because we don't spend time thinking about what our local buildings might represent in the future. A building is physical information. Look at all the ones in this exhibition that aren't there to be seen anymore, so this exhibition is a celebration of excellent artwork but also a celebration of the built history of this town."
Meet the artist, writer, commissioner and curator involved in The Prince George Paintings-100 Years In Recollections at a reception tonight at 7:30. It is free to attend, with a public discussion to begin and a party to follow. The paintings and words will be on display at Two Rivers Gallery until July 19.
