Maxwell Bates RCA, OC

Banff National Park Gallery of Fine Art and Photography


		Maxwell Bates RCA, OC
		1906-80
		historical Canadian artist

		View from the Studio Window (Victoria), 1971
		oil/art panel
		12x16"
		$7500.00 CDN
		Maxwell Bates was born in Calgary on December 14, 1906. He studied under Lars Haukaness at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary, from 1926 to 1927. However, Bates was mainly self-taught. He and W. L. Stevenson paired up to study impressionist and post-impressionist painting. They met twice a week to discuss what they learned about French painting. In 1928, Bates' abstracts first appeared. In that year, because their pieces were too modern, Bates and Stevenson were banned from exhibiting with the Calgary Art Club. In 1929, Bates and Stevenson made a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago to study impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, the work of Cezanne, Seurat, Van Gogh, and Monet. In 1931, Bates went to England to study painting and architecture. From 1932 to 1939, he was a member of the "Twenties Group". When World War II broke out, he enlisted with the British Army; he served from 1940 to 1945. After the War ended, he returned to Calgary for a short time. In 1949-50 he attended the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Back in Calgary, Bates developed a working relationship with fellow artist John Snow. Their explorations in color, form, and process closely resemble the working relation of early 20th C. artists Braque and Picasso. Bate's and Snow's experiments are so closely aligned that the determination of which artist completed the work is sometimes difficult to discern. Bates collected Japanese colour prints. He also developed an interest in the philosophy of art, and wrote a series of articles about it in "Canadian Art" and other periodicals. His drawing was influenced by Michelangelo and Rembrandt, and his painting by Goya, Daumier, J.L. Forain, and post-impressionism. There is influence of German Expressionism, particularly in his figurative pieces. His street scenes, landscapes, still lifes fluxuate between the romantic and the melancholic. He primarily worked with oil, watercolour, chalk, and pen and ink. He also produced lithography. Bates, with A.W. Hodges, co-designed St. Mary's Cathedral in Calgary. After a stroke in the late 1960s, Bates moved to Victoria. He passed away there in 1980.