GEORGE WEBBER: May 14 - 31, 2005, Scott Gallery, Edmonton, May 14 - 21,2005, Willock and Sax Gallery, Waterton Lakes.

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"Sturgeon River"

George Weber, "Sturgeon River," 1980, serigraph, edition of 35, 13" x 10 1/4".

GEORGE WEBBER

May 14 - 31, 2005, Scott Gallery, Edmonton

May 14 - 21,2005, Willock and Sax Gallery, Waterton Lakes.

By Mary Joyce

By rejecting the Group of Seven “empty” landscape, George Webber’s soft, clean-lined serigraphs anticipate the interest of a much-later generation in the interaction of nature and culture. He records human impact on the prairie: a sundance among the Peigan, pumpjacks and grain elevators, irrigation waterworks along stream and river courses. His print of the Athabasca Glacier in the 1950s can now prove, by comparison, the effects of global warming. His Edmonton and Calgary skylines at night and by day glorify modernism in architecture, if not through his own aesthetic. Raised in Germany, trained in Munich in wallpaper design and display, he studied composition, colour and commercial silkscreen techniques in Toronto from 1930 to ‘34. His work was traditional, conventional, illustrative; his attitude was workmanlike, serious and focused, and for 50-plus years he promoted the practice of fine-art printmaking in Edmonton. Weber passed away at age 95 in 2002, leaving behind a body of serigraphs documenting Alberta’s transformation from depression-era wild west to oil-rich urban prosperity. Significant in the field of printmaking, he maintained his day job as

a commercial artist while teaching, writing, lecturing, and producing prints throughout the province.

Represented by: Scott Gallery, Edmonton; Willock and Sax Gallery, Waterton Lakes. Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff, has a study collection of Weber prints.