A Tribute by Jeffrey Spalding to Douglas Haynes (1936 - 2016)

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Doug Haynes was an immense artistic talent and a towering figure who helped define the arts of western Canada throughout a period spanning more than 40 years. Born in Regina; he studied at what is now the Alberta College of Art & Design from 1954 to 1958. Subsequently he studied at the Royal Academy of Art, Holland.  As a respected professor , department head and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, Department of Art and Design from 1970 to 1995 he helped shape  many emerging artistic careers. As a teacher possessed of a generosity of spirit and an avid advocate for the values of contemporary art, he was clearly a trailblazer. His example as an inspiring, inventive art maker was a crucial component in the campaign to establish a stronghold for advanced contemporary art in the west.

The excellence of his contributions as an artist was identified in the 1960s and continued to be acknowledged to the present.  He created a signature approach with his split diamond series of the 1970s. He used this motif as a compositional ‘scaffold’ in countless paintings exploring vast variations in colour, touch, texture and temperament. Evidently they face head on the modernist-formalist legacy of Jack Bush, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler and the lessons of post-painterly abstraction.  After all paintings such as Red Rider gloried in trumpeting the visual pleasures of grand expanses of untouched, raw canvas inflected by stained colour, an aesthetic attitude favoured by this ‘school’ of painting. Yet this doesn’t quite sum up Haynes’ position. Even during this period, he was as much looking backwards as forwards. His work is not a mere extrapolation upon then current modernist abstractionist developments. He was also referencing the art of admired figures of the previous generation.  I particularly think of Robert Motherwell’s Spanish Elegy series, Franz Kline, Adolph Gottlieb and numbers of second generation Abstract expressionists such as Ray Parker as well as Patrick Heron, John Hoyland and the artists of the British St. Ives group. Fairly heady company to do battle with; Haynes’ split diamond paintings carve out their own place within this pantheon.

In the 1980s Haynes conjoined with the birth of early 20th century abstraction, a series of works described as ‘cubism revisited’. It permitted the re-introduction of thick painterly applications and a further emphasis upon reliance upon drawing, monochrome versus colour and relational composition. He continued to search and explore for new ways to create powerful iconic painted images.

Over 70 works by the artist have been acquired for the collections of distinguished public art museums from coast to coast, notably: The National Gallery of Canada,  Art Gallery of Ontario, Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Alberta, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Glenbow Museum, University of Lethbridge, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Confederation Centre Art Gallery & Museum, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, University of Alberta, Mendel Art Gallery, MacKenzie Art Gallery , Alberta Foundation for the Arts; Canada Council Art Bank; Concordia University and University of Calgary. Two fine examples of his work are in the collection of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery

Jeffrey Spalding  C.M.,  RCA

Senior Curator

Beaverbrook Art Gallery

Consulting Editor

Galleries West magazine