Alex Colville to speak about his experience as a war artistLecture on Sunday, April 9, 2000 at 2:00 p.m. at Canadian Museum of CivilizationHull, Quebec, March 29, 2000 — One of Canada's best-known painters, Alex Colville, will give a lecture about his experiences as a Canadian war artist during the Second World War. The lecture, presented in support of the exhibition Canvas of War: Masterpieces from the Canadian War Museum, will take place in the Theatre of the Canadian Museum of Civilization on Sunday, April 9, 2000 at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are $5 and are available at the Museum Box Office or through Ticketmaster at (613) 755-1111.
The title of Mr. Colville's lecture is A Voyeur of War. The theme is the profound effect the war had on the artist, his work and his career. Colville joined the Canadian Army upon graduation from his studies in fine art. He served two years as a soldier until he was officially appointed a war artist at the age of 23. Upon arriving in London, he was stationed with a supply unit in Yorkshire. He subsequently traveled to the Mediterranean, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Colville was one of the first to be sent to the liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he recorded what he saw in powerful works such as Bodies in a Grave, included in the Canvas of War exhibition.
Internationally recognized as one of Canada's best artists, Alex Colville spent most of his youth in Amherst, Nova Scotia and later attended Mount Allison University in nearby Sackville, New Brunswick. After the war, Colville returned to Mount Allison as a teacher. Following his retirement in 1963, Colville devoted all of his time to painting. He moved to Wolfville in 1973, and from 1981 to 1991 he was chancellor of the humanities department at Acadia University. He and his wife, Rhoda, continue to live in the family home in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
Alex Colville's work is included in many art collections around the world, including those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover, Germany and, of course, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. The Canadian War Museum has 400 works by Colville in its collection.
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