It’s tempting to wonder if B.C. printmaker Doug Biden had subconscious intimations of his illness and early death. A recurring theme in his work is the visceral anatomy of the human body — skeletons, musculature and organ systems. Certainly, those works took on new poignancy following his death at 50 from pancreatic cancer, particularly as Biden had always lived life to the fullest, cheerfully boyish and ready to play, even in the hallways of UBC Okanagan, where he taught for a decade. He was extremely popular, both with colleagues and students. Indeed, Bob Belton, dean of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, remembers Biden as “a great bon-vivant”.

Jack Lee McLean may not be a household name in the contemporary Western Canadian visual arts community, but he created more than 1500 paintings during his lifetime. His work has been criticized as too illustrative, formulaic and sentimental, though it reflects the ranching culture of the mid 20th century — the solitary life of the cowboy and his horse. Despite the sentimentality, to those who know and understand ranch life, McLean’s paintings are an honest interpretation of the relationship between man, horse and land. The titles of his paintings evoke a place and time — “Scouting the Pass,” “Trapper’s Pass,” “Cold Journey,” “Chasing Wild Mustangs”, “Heading Out” — that gets into the heart of the popular image of the west.

Llewellyn Petley-Jones moved to Horseshoe Bay in the early 1950s, when it was little more than a settlement of scattered cottages around a small marina, a considerable journey north from downtown Vancouver. He had just returned to Canada following a successful 15-year period in Europe, where he had been mingling in cafes with artists like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

Manitoba artist Kenneth Gordon lived several lives — as an art educator, founder of Winnipeg’s Medea Gallery and later as a full-time painter. He spent more than two decades at Winnipeg’s R.B. Russell Vocational High School as an art instructor — one of his lush landscapes still hangs in the staff room of the school. After retiring from teaching, he re-located to the quiet town of Winnipeg Beach, north of Winnipeg, becoming a full-time painter and dedicating his life’s work to capturing the beauty and depth of the Canadian landscape.

In his figurative drawings and paintings, Salt Spring Island artist LeRoy Jensen expressed a deep capacity for empathy and compassion, an interest in representing the human condition. His artistic process reflects a unique fusion of traditional and modern painterly practices that mix academic techniques with modernist formal ideals. He began each painting with a foundation drawing, then, working from the specific to the general, he added high contrast areas and colour, covering the original drawing in thick, sensuous paint. The final results were spontaneous and direct, but his expressive freedom was built upon a well-defined armature.

Picture an image of a young Margaret Shelton pedaling down the uneven highway from Calgary to Banff, her paint box, sketchbook and camping gear affixed to her bicycle. Eventually she’d pull over to paint something — a grain elevator, a tractor, a mountain, a mine — whatever struck her. “She painted everything,” says Jill Clark, director of The Collector’s Gallery of Art in Calgary, which represents Shelton’s estate.

Taken from a purely intellectual point of view, Jean-Paul Riopelle led a charmed life. Present for a remarkable number of monumental creative discoveries during the 20th century, his work reflected the zeitgeist of a mid-century Parisian aesthetic that combined favourably with his Canadian roots. Quite possibly the most recognized internationally of any Quebec-born artist, his work still strongly resonates both in that province and across the country.