Book on E.J. Hughes Wins UBC Prize

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(courtesy of TouchWood Editions)

Victoria writer Robert Amos is the winner of this year's Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for his 2022 book, E.J. Hughes: Canadian War Artist.

The annual $3,500 prize is awarded by the UBC Library for the "best scholarly book on a B.C. subject." 

Amos, who wrote a visual arts column for the Victoria Times Colonist for many years, has been the artist's official biographer since 2010. 

E.J. Hughes: Canadian War Artist is his fifth book about Hughes. In it, he examines the artist's paintings, diaries and letters from the Second World War. Hughes, born in North Vancouver, was an official army war artist. He later settled on Vancouver Island, living in Shawnigan Lake.

"I gave myself to the task 12 years ago," says Amos. "With the encouragement of the Hughes estate, I set about publishing his life’s work in a series of books." 

"His paintings of our coast and the interior are beloved, yet his time as the first, longest-serving and most productive Canadian war artist was essentially unknown."        

Amos is working on a sixth volume, E. J. Hughes: Life at the Lake, to be published by TouchWood Editions in the fall.

Source: University of British Columbia