* Stanley Cosgrove: serigraph

Peso Priced Item.  Serigraph by Stanley Morel Cosgrove (1911-2002). 
Numbered: 22/200. Dated '83. 20" by 25" framed and matted.
 
Biography from the Archives of askART
 
Stanley Morel Cosgrove was a painter, draughtsman, printmaker, muralist, and educator.  He was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada where, other than for education and travel, he lived his whole life and died.

His most famous mediums are oil on canvas, oil on wood and fresco*(1).  He also did drawings in charcoal, Conte crayon*, ink and graphite.  His prints are primarily serigraphs*. Works in other mediums are rare.  His subjects were landscapes (primarily forests), figures (primarily women), portraits (primarily women), nudes (always women), and still life.  His styles were Expressionism* and Fauvism*.  His work with its distinct simple forms, limited palette, pastel colours, distorted shapes and recurrent subjects is easy to recognize.  The numerous AskART Image examples are good illustrations of its range.

Quote: "They're not trees. They're not trees at all. They're just perpendiculars and horizontals. That's what they are to me. Why do I repeat them? Repetition is what painting is all about, repetition of themes, repetition of subject matter.  Paint. That's all a painter wants to do." -  Stanley Cosgrove (1980).

He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Montreal (1929 -1935) (2) under Charles Maillard (see AskART), Henri Charpentier (1888 - 1967), Maurice Félix (see AskART) and Joseph Alfred Saint-Charles (1868 - 1956); and at the Art Association of Montreal (1936) under with Edwin Holgate (see AskART).  He also studied in Mexico City (1940-1943) on a bursary from the Province of Quebec, at the Academia de San Carlos under Manuel Rodriguez Lozano (see AskART) and fresco techniques privately with José Clemente Orozco (see AskART).

When he returned to Montreal he taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts from 1944 to 1958 and in 1960.  He devoted himself to painting full time after 1960, for the rest of his life.

His travels include New York City for two months on his way to Mexico in 1940 and France in 1953 on a Canadian government overseas fellowship.

He was a member of the Contemporary Arts Society* (1939), the Canadian Group of Painters* (1950) and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts* (Associate 1951, Academician 1967).  His friends and painting companions included Edwin Holgate, Jori Smith, Jean Paul Lemieux, Goodridge Roberts and Joseph Jean Palardy (see all in AskART) (3).

In addition to exhibiting with the above organizations he exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts eight times between 1936 and 1964.  He also exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa) in "Four Painters of Quebec" (4) in 1949 and with B.C. Binning (see AskART) in "Binning - Cosgrove" at the Art Gallery of Toronto (5) in 1951.

He had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Quebec, Quebec City in 1939 and at the Art Association of Montreal (6) in 1944.  His works were also included in several Canadian landmark exhibitions including "Panorama of Painting in Quebec: 1940-1955" at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art in 1967; in "Three Hundred Years of Canadian Art" at the National Gallery of Canada in 1967; in "Canadian Painting in the Thirties" at the National Gallery of Canada in 1975; in "The Contemporary Arts Society: 1939 - 1948" at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art in 1981; in "Modern Art in Quebec: 1916 - 1946" at the National Gallery of Canada in 1982; and in "Eye on the Work" at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art in 1997.

Recently his works were included in "Max Stern: The Taste of a Dealer" (7) at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal in 2004; in "A Dealer for "Living Art": Selected Works from the Max and Iris Stern Donation to Montreal" at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2005; and in "Celebrating 35 Years of the Firestone Collection of Canadian Art" * at the Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario in 2008.

His works are avidly collected.  They are also in numerous public collections including the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Kingston, Ontario), the Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton), the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (B.C.), the Art Gallery of Hamilton (Ontario), the Art Gallery of Ontario, the  Confederation Centre Art Gallery & Museum (Charlottetown, P.E.I.), the Joliette Art Museum (Quebec), the Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, Ontario), the Owens Art Gallery (Sackville, N.B.), the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (Concordia University, Montreal), the Mendel Art Gallery (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax), the Museum of Quebec (Quebec City), the Ottawa Art Gallery (Ontario), the Winnipeg Art Gallery (Manitoba), the Vancouver Art Gallery (B.C.), the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery (Fredericton, N.B.) and the National Gallery of Canada. According to the Canadian Heritage Information Network there are 219 Cosgrove works in museums across Canada.

Cosgrove was an important Canadian artist and his work is illustrated and discussed in most books about Canadian art history and Canadian modern art.  There are also the monographs Cosgrove (1980) by Jules Bazin and Cosgrove (1989), by Jacques de Roussan (see AskART book references).