"Space Breaker"
Helen Stadelbauer, "Space Breaker," linocut on paper, 1949. Collection of the Glenbow Museum, Calgary. PHOTO: GLENBOW MUSEUM
HELEN STADELBAUER AND WES IRWIN
At the Crossroads, March 19 to April 28, 2010, Triangle Gallery, Calgary
BY: Jill Sawyer
Featuring oil paintings, watercolours, and works on paper, mainly from the Glenbow Museum and the archives of the University of Calgary, this retrospective show brings together two artists who were intrinsically tied to the creative development of Calgary and the Alberta art scene. This is the first exhibition to focus on the work of Helen Stadelbuaer (1910-2006) and Wes Irwin (1897-1976). Both artists have been credited as two of the earliest proponents of Modernism in Alberta, and they both brought elements of avant-garde, mid-century style and technique to their work. Stadelbauer was a founder of the art department of the University of Calgary, and administered it for close to 30 years. Irwin was a founding member of the Alberta Society of Artists in the 1930s, and its second president after A.C. Leighton. He was an experimental art educator, teaching for decades at a Calgary high school after finishing an M.A. at Columbia University. “Both artists witnessed around them the transformation of a pioneering society into a modern one, and the impact of modern art on western Canada,” says At the Crossroads curator Mary-Beth Laviolette. “Both developments are reflected in their art as they strove to till the soil for a more visually educated and creative society.”