Full Description
Woldemar Neufeld (1909â2002) emigrated with his Mennonite parents from Ukraine to Canada in 1924. By the late 1920s, he had begun his lifelong project as documentarist, responding especially to the built environment, whether close to his home in southern Ontario or farther afield: northern Ontario, the prairies and the west coast, the Maritimes and Quebec. His work passed through a number of styles, from the coolly abstract to the vividly "realistic." Although he never abandoned oils, he produced a substantial body of watercolours and block printsâthe latter influenced by German Expressionist and Japanese printmaking approaches. Woldemar Neufeld's Canada , a record of Neufeld's Canadian paintings and block prints, explores influences that shaped Neufeld's career as it developed in Canada during the 1920s and 1930s and came to fruition from 1940s to the 1990s. Early on, Neufeld came into contact with leading Canadian artists, from Homer Watson to members of the Group of Seven. During the 1930s, he began to participate in group and solo exhibitions, including a one-man show at the Vancouver Art Gallery. After studies in Cleveland, he settled in New York City (1945) and New England (1949). Until the 1990s, however, he continued to work in Canada, returning especially to document, in various media, urban and rural landscapes in southern Ontario.
Contents
Table of Contents for Woldemar Neufeldâs Canada: A Mennonite Artist in the Canadian Landscape 1925â1995 , edited by Laurence Neufeld and Monika McKillen; text by Hildi Froese Tiessen and Paul Gerard Tiessen Arrival in Canada 1924â25 Building Bridges European Roots: Russia Forgetting Russia âRussian Mennonitesâ in Canada âOntario Mennonitesâ and âWaterloo Countyâ The Canadian Art Scene: Homer Watson and the Group of Seven Early Years in Canada 1925â35 At Home and Away Block Printing: Black and White Art Society of Kitchener Early Exhibitions An Emerging Career Crossing Borders 1935â44 From Canada to Cleveland Printing and Painting in the Canadian West Visiting Canada 1945â68 American Neighbourhoods Excursions into Abstraction Waterloo Revival 1968â95 Notes References Plates Paintings and Drawings Block Prints
