Margaret Shelton Block Prints of the 1930s & 40s
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Willock & Sax Gallery 210 Bear Street PO Box 2469, Banff, Alberta T1L 1C2
Reception: Saturday, 23 March, 2 to 6 pm.
Margaret Shelton Block Prints of the 1930s & 40s. Over 80 years ago Margaret Shelton began making block prints of her world in Banff, Calgary and the Drumheller Valley.
Part of Banff Gallery Hop - Spring Break.
“Unlike earlier Canadian artists including the CPR artists … and the Group of Seven, Shelton chose to interpret nature directly, without any romantic notion that it stood for or represented something else. Hers was a simpler and less spectacular rendering of the world than that of earlier romantic artists. She did not choose to convey the wildness, grandeur or primitivism of nature. She selected straightforward scenes which she depicted in a well-executed representational style that relied on nature for its impulse.” (Patricia Ainslie, Margaret Shelton: Block Prints 1936-1984 Glenbow Museum, exhibition catalgue, Calgary, Alberta, 1984, p.8)
Margaret Shelton loved spending time in Banff and Jasper National Parks. She created watercolors, oils, and lino-block prints, which still give us pleasure as well as an understanding of her incredible skill as an artist.
Margaret's work in our gallery is wide ranging in its media: watercolors, oils, and block prints (linocuts and woodcuts). Some pieces date from the 1930s and we have striking images from the 1970s and 80s. The wide range of imagery shows Margaret's insatiable desire to travel and record that travel with her artwork. They also indicate the artist's concern with technique; she searched for appropriate means to communicate what she saw. Not only are there images from Banff, but also the high alpine areas from Yoho and Jasper, out in the foothills and prairies around Calgary, the Red Deer River and Drumheller areas.