Sybil Andrews, “Tillers of the Soil,” 1934
colour linocut (courtesy the Feckless Collection)
Whimsical yet instructive, the prints collected by newspaper publisher Robert Doull are anything but feckless.
Doull has amassed more than 1,000 prints by some 250 artists in British Columbia since he started collecting them in the 1980s. About half – including linocuts, etchings, serigraphs and woodcuts – are posted online, in what is cheekily dubbed the Feckless Collection.
It includes works by well-known artists like B.C. Binning, Molly Lamb Bobak, E.J. Hughes, Ann Kipling, Toni Onley, Joe Plaskett, Jack Shadbolt, Gordon Smith and Fred Varley, but also many who scaled lesser heights of fame, including a few about whom almost nothing is known.
Robert Watson, "Dreams of Fort Garry," 1931
Doull’s interest in prints began in 1974 when he was given Dreams of Fort Garry, a long poem about the lives of early settlers in Western Canada by Scottish-born Robert Watson. Published in 1931, it was illustrated with 23 woodcuts by Walter J. Phillips, who played an important role in developing the visual arts program at the Banff Centre.
Doull, the owner of Aberdeen Press, which publishes a handful of community newspapers mainly in British Columbia, recalls being fascinated by the process of etching or carving images into wood or metal plates that are then inked and pressed onto paper.
“I was very interested in how it was done,” says Doull. “You would have to do it upside down and backwards to get the image.”
Robert Doull
A fortuitous meeting with Don Atkins, the president of a commercial printing business who had studied printmaking as a young man, led the duo to start collecting prints. Quickly realizing the vast array of potential works, they tried to limit themselves to images made by B.C. artists prior to 1971. Atkins died in 2010, but by then his wife, Barbara, had taken on a supporting role with the collection.
Doull says art historians have acknowledged the value of the collection, which documents the province’s human and industrial history, as well as its built and natural landscapes. He will loan some images to the Cascadia Art Museum, in Edmonds, Washington, near Seattle, for an exhibition from April 6 to July 16.
Dorothy Henzell-Willis, “Mountain Lake with Cabins,” no date
colour linocut on paper (courtesy the Feckless Collection)
“The prints are rooted in the traditions of European printmaking,” says Doull, noting the earliest works depicting the West Coast were made by officers aboard colonial ships that explored the area. In the days before photography, it was common for an artist to join a ship’s crew to document the journey.
Early settler artists continued to make prints, but it was difficult for them to earn a living.
“They really struggled and had to have other work,” Doull says.
James Jervis Blomfield, “Old Prospect Point,” circa 1917
coloured etching, 5” x 5” (courtesy the Feckless Collection)
One early printmaker, James Blomfield, who lived from 1879 to 1951, worked at his father’s stained-glass studio in New Westminster. One of Blomfield’s prints – Old Prospect Point, is reproduced on the cover of Waterfront: The Illustrated Maritime Story of Greater Vancouver, a book published in 2005 by James Delgado, a former director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum.
The Feckless Collection’s online index includes a good number of female printmakers, including Sybil Andrews, who died in 1992. A British artist, she arrived on Vancouver Island after the Second World War. Her work has drawn new interest in recent years with a 2019 retrospective at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary.
Other post-war emigres in the collection include Yugoslavian-born Zeljko Kujundzic (1920-2003), an influential artist and educator in the B.C. Interior, and Czechoslovakian-born Velen Fanderlik (1907-1985). Some of Fanderlik’s linocuts depict Doukhobor villages and small-town life in southeastern B.C.
Velen Fanderlik, “Ootischenia Village,” undated
linoblock print from the “Doukhobor Villages” portfolio (courtesy the Feckless Collection)
Indigenous artists started printmaking in significant numbers later in the 20th century. Doull has acquired four 1969 serigraphs by Haida artist Robert Davidson, whose exhibition of stunning graphic work, A Line That Bends But Does Not Break, is on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery until April 16.
Artists with roots in China – where printmaking originated – and other Asian countries have also been active in the province’s printmaking scene. Among them was Japanese-born Noboru Sawai (1931-2016), who taught at the University of Calgary for more than 20 years, before retiring to Vancouver, where he set up a printmaking studio.
Doull has had tentative discussions with different galleries about selling the collection. But he is reluctant to break it up.
“They have indicated they are primarily interested in acquiring prints exclusively by well-known artists,” he says. “But the work of forgotten and obscure artists also has value.”
For now, the Feckless Collection remains intact. And thanks to Doull’s diligence in posting images online, many remarkable prints by regional artists, past and present, can be viewed easily by anyone who wants to learn more about the province’s cultural history. ■
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