This summer, Glenbow was thrilled to launch the JR Shaw Institute for Art in Canada Internship Program. Funded through a generous gift from Shaw Family Foundation, this initiative was established to give students opportunities to work with Glenbow. In this collections feature, intern Asees Sekhon writes about her research on watercolour and natural history.
Before the advent of present-day cameras and technology, many watercolour artists documented the wildlife and plants of Canada through painting. Two such paintings in Glenbow’s collection are Allan Brooks’ Holboell’s Grebe (Podiceps Griseigena Holbollii) and Annora Brown’s Calypso (Cytherea Bulbosa). These artists share similarities in how they observed their natural environments and used watercolours to paint what they saw. By closely studying their subject matter, these artists not only developed deeper connections with their natural environments but also painted highly accurate, detailed representations of wildlife and plants. Today, these paintings serve as historical records of species as seen from an artist’s perspective.
Allan Brooks’ Holboell’s Grebe (Podiceps Grisegena Holbollii)
Holboell’s Grebe (Podiceps Grisegena Holbollii), painted by ornithologist, zoologist, and artist Allan Brooks (1869-1946), depicts an aquatic bird in the Okanagan region of British Columbia. As Brooks lived much of his life in the Okanagan, he was able to create detailed records of the diverse bird species found there. Brooks was known for the several bird books he illustrated throughout his years of closely observing and studying the animals. Through previous training in zoology, he had firsthand knowledge of birds in their natural environments and was able to accurately paint their anatomy, colours, and behaviour.
The bird depicted in Holboell’s Grebe (Podiceps Grisegena Holbollii) is a subspecies of the Red-necked Grebe, found in North America and Eastern Asia. Brooks’ representation of this bird combines both transparent and opaque techniques of watercolour painting. His use of the transparent technique can be seen in the layered wash of colours used to paint the bird’s submerged body and the water. The rest of the bird is painted in vivid, opaque colours that draw the viewer’s attention. Shades of green, red, yellow, and brown are used to accurately depict the bird, almost as if in a photograph. Brooks’ scientific perspective is evident in this painting in how he used art as a form of documentation rather than expression or experimentation.
Annora Brown’s Calypso (Cytherea Bulbosa)
Annora Brown (1899-1987) was an Alberta-born artist who painted Western Canadian subject matter. She was heavily influenced by the landscapes, people, and flowers of Fort Macleod, Alberta. From a young age, Brown collected seeds, bulbs, and roots in the wild to cultivate her own wildflower garden. Through her paintings, she sought to preserve the flora and fauna of Southern Alberta – an area not widely explored by other artists of the early twentieth century.
Brown first created small paintings of flowers to help her family financially during the Great Depression. In 1954, she published a book called Old Man’s Garden, which illustrated and discussed legends and folklore associated with wildflowers and native plants in Southern Alberta. Unlike more scientific botanical books, Brown took a narrative approach she described as “a book of gossip about the flowers of the West.” According to Brown, its purpose was to “change the flowers from strange botanical specimens to friends.”
In 1957, the Glenbow Foundation commissioned Brown to create 200 paintings of plants native to Alberta. The paintings were so popular, she also began creating and selling them privately. Ultimately, she completed over 500 paintings between 1958 and 1960, creating about three a week.
Like Allan Brooks, Brown studied her subject matter closely. She travelled to several natural areas, including Waterton Park and Banff National Park, which are home to some of Canada’s rarest wildflowers. Brown then located species of flowers, sketched them, and took this information to an area where she could complete her paintings. With some of these flowers now extinct, Brown’s paintings serve as historical records of Alberta’s vast plant life.
In her painting Calypso (Cytherea Bulbosa), Brown depicts the calypso flower, also commonly known as Venus’ slipper, found in Alberta on the slopes of mountains and deep in the woods. In her book Old Man’s Garden, Brown discusses the thrill of finding this “lovely little pink orchid” for the first time and describes it as having a “spotted body and elfin wings tied with a silken cord to two round green leaves.” This painting differs from traditional botanical paintings by considering the flower’s spiritual qualities rather than trying to achieve photographic accuracy.
The calypso flower is brought to life through Brown’s use of vivid pinks and greens, with a darker range of blues making up the background. The flower, leaves, and brush evoke an exciting sense of movement, almost seeming to sway in the wind. Through her layering of the calypso flower in the foreground, with multiple overlapping layers of leaves, branches, and other plant life in the background, Brown creates an appealing sense of depth that highlights the calypso flower’s beauty.
Brooks’ and Brown’s naturalist paintings demonstrate one of the ways artists across Canada have used watercolours as a tool for exploration, documentation, and connection to the land. Glenbow’s large and diverse collection of watercolour works offer many treasures like these – and many more surprises to discover.
