"Gordon Smith was born in 1919 in England. He arrived in Winnipeg at the age of fifteen and first studied art there with Le Moine Fitzgerald. He later moved to Vancouver and graduated from the Vancouver School of Art at the end of the war. He joined staff in 1946 and in 1957 moved to the Fine Art Department of the University of British Columbia. In his work of the fifties he is concerned to recreate an actual experience or mood rather than, like Shadbolt, to create a new multi-leveled reality." (Dennis Reid: A concise History of Canadian Painting. Toronto University Press, 1973. P. 278)
Dimensions
60 X 75 cm
Size Overall
76 X 91 cm
Medium
oil
Condition
The surface is dusty, and the frame has abrasion marks all around its perimeter.
The tipi was raised at noon on Friday, August 15, 1997 in the Tipi Village at the Canada Summer Games site, Brandon, Manitoba. A pipe ceremony was conducted by elders Mary and Solomon Hall of Sioux Valley, Manitoba and a feast was provided by the students. At the conclusion of the Summer Games it was set up on the campus of Brandon University to welcome all to a new year.
The painted sun on the eastern door cover symbolically welcomes the sun into and out of the tipi during it's daily journey. The cover is made with the intention to invite not only the sun, but everyone into the tipi. The red hands radiating from the sun are the hands of those who painted this tipi. The painted hand imprint is a most ancient image recorded by humans. It is a clear message of human presence and all that humanity means. These hands are reaching out like the rays of the sun to greet all with warmth in the 'Welcome Lodge'.
Dimensions
158 X 122 cm
Size Overall
same as image
Medium
acrylic
Notes
Designed and painted by the students of the Experiments in Traditional Art Forms class of 1997.
Condition
Canvas is heavily creased from storage. Severe cracks in paint throughout. Water stain in area TM, as well as a brown stain in area RM. There is a 66 cm vertical gash down the center of the image, but has been sewn up.
