Maxwell Bates: The In-Crowd

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Maxwell Bates, "The In-Crowd," 2020

Maxwell Bates: The In-Crowd

Organized by Glenbow; Curated by Travis Lutley and Sarah Todd.

After suffering a massive stroke at the end of 1961, renowned Canadian artist Maxwell Bates moved from his home in Calgary to Victoria, BC. Following his recovery, Bates resumed what would be the final phase of his career, and for the first time he was able to work as a full-time artist. Now relying entirely on the sales of his work for his income he was forced to engage with the art world in a way he had not since he began painting. Dealers, openings and parties became his new social scene and the subjects of his work. Bates felt the party paintings were some of his best work as they captured the subtle and complex qualities of relationships and interactions so well. Illustrating an artist’s oscillation between observer and participant these complex paintings are vibrant, confrontational and brim with pictorial and social tension. They revel in Bates’ shocking use of colour and tight perspective, creating a wild energy that allows the viewer to feel as though that they’re right there in the midst of the party.

The In-Crowd is a unique exhibition which brings together important material that has previously never been exhibited or discussed in this way. The exhibition consists of the best oil paintings from Bates’ social bodies of work, and has been drawn from private and public collections from Victoria to Toronto.The In-Crowd demonstrates Bates’ continued stylistic and subjective relevance to contemporary painting. Bates’ perennial interest in the figure ran out of step with contemporary painting in the sixties and seventies, and so in a sense this exhibition presents work that may be more relevant now than when it was made.