Biography

b. 1936

Colour continues to be an important means for dealing with my subject. My subject has a lot do with the allusive – times of the year, times of the day, and light. A journey of some sixty (60) years, I repeatedly return to ‘remembrance’ – an inner sense of place.

Now in his 80s Graff is concentrating on colour, visual texture and media with less involvement with the idea of a subject. He is enjoying this unadulterated involvement. Even in his prior works he moved away from natural forms and appearances by adopting symbols and metaphoric forms to speak to the ‘spirit of locations.’ His intent was to give particular landscape elements monumental strength.

“Moving away from the idea of a single fixed vision regarding the subject of landscape, I found myself confronted with complex relationships of form through space. Accepting the idea that time, movement and change are integral dimensions of the subject, adding in remembrances of past related experience; the subject becomes that much more layered and dimensional. The multifaceted layering of elements from the land allows me to build the landscape versus a literal rendition of water, trees, coulees and hills.

'Landscape' for me has been the familiar, therein serving as a 'backdrop' for my life. More than an interesting visual experience for art making, landscape has become an extension of self. I went a step further by involving our home with the land by incorporating still life with landscape fragments. Because of that, I have been preoccupied with developing a visual vocabulary that would enable me to speak about the subject, at the most personal level. What I do share with Canadian landscape artists is the idea of 'place'. We all have a need for a sense of place. I think of myself as an Alberta artist...”

Les takes as his reference the Alberta rural landscape. His preliminary sketches are the seeds for his creativity, with further development commenced in his studio. The sketch may be rendered as a colorful study in oil, or exploring form, Les may then extract the essentials with charcoal and graphite focusing on line. Large, bold, colorful, abstract oils on canvas are often the culmination of the previous studies.

From 1962-2022, he exhibited in 35 solo and 40 group shows. In addition to his career as an artist, Les was the Director of Alberta Culture, Visual Arts from 1966-91; he served on the board of the Edmonton Art Gallery from 1996-98; and he has had numerous teaching and curatorial engagements over his career. In 2016 Les Graff was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA). This well-deserved honour recognized his contribution to Canadian art and secured a place for him in Canada’s art history.

Les Graff was born in Camrose, Alberta in 1936. Growing up in Bashaw his talent was know and encouraged by many people in the town. When he had the opportunity to attend a summer session at the Banff Centre, the town raised $111.00 and gifted it to him as a tuition scholarship. Les then attended the Alberta College of Art & Design in Calgary from 1955-9 on scholarships and part-time jobs. That was followed with an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, long considered the cradle of American modernism in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.