Uprooted: The Life and Art of Ernest Lindner by Terrence Heath

More life than art
Ernest Lindner is an Austrian-born artist who emigrated to Canada in 1926 and became one of Saskatchewan’s best known painters. I first encountered his work in a book on Canadian printmaking. After seeing his linocut prints, which are absolutely phenomenal, I wanted to find out more about Lindner and his work, and this book seems to be just about all that’s available on him. To my disappointment, his printmaking is barely covered in this book. The author mentions his linocuts as if there were merely a hobby. Only one linocut print is pictured in the book, and it’s a still life not wholly indicative of his prowess in the medium.

Uprooted: The Life and Art of Ernest Lindner was published in 1983 by Fifth House, a Saskatoon publisher. It’s no coincidence that the word “Life” comes before “Art” in the subtitle, because this is primarily a biography, not a showcase for his work. The book is chock full of historical photos of Lindner and his family, but there aren’t a whole lot of artworks pictured. Of the paintings that are included, half of them aren’t very good. Even the author Terrence Heath, a close friend of Lindner’s, admits that Lindner’s painting work really didn’t reach a remarkable level of quality until he was in his sixties. There are 16 pages of color plates in the back of the book. Among these there are about 8 paintings from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s that are excellent. These extremely detailed close-ups of forest undergrowth and tree bark are rendered in a hyperrealistic manner that combines the subtle attention to detail of Andrew Wyeth with the photographic clarity of Richard Estes. They succeed both as faithful representations of nature and as beautiful, abstract tapestries. Outside of this impressive period of work, the rest of the landscapes are pedestrian by comparison. There’s also a series of drawings of nudes from the 1970s, but they look like typical nudes from the ‘70s—well-executed, but by now a bit dated.

The text by Heath is above average. Unlike a lot of regional artist biographies, it’s more than just an elaborate resumé or an adulatory eulogy. Lindner himself contributes a chapter on his experiences with the Austrian army in World War I. Heath covers Lindner’s childhood and young adulthood quite well. He goes beyond mere facts and delves into Lindner’s psychology and philosophy of life. Despite the fact that the author and artist were friends, some passages paint a rather unflattering portrait of “Ernie”. He comes across as a womanizer and at times emotionally childish. He fled Austria to avoid bankruptcy, leaving a wife and child behind. All these details make for an interesting life story, but what’s missing from this artist’s biography is the art. There is some interesting coverage of Lindner’s involvement with the Kingston Conference of 1941, an important gathering of Canadian artists. Later in his career, Lindner encountered New York art critic Clement Greenberg, the spokesman for abstract expressionism, who had a positive impact on his art. Overall, however, there’s very little about Lindner’s development as a painter. One theme that’s repeated throughout the book is that with all his teaching and administrative work with arts organizations, Lindner just didn’t have any time to paint. Perhaps that explains the poor selection of images in the book.

The fact that the book was printed in the 1980s doesn’t do it any favors either. Today’s printing technologies would allow for more color and better reproduction. Heath’s text is good enough to merit resurrection in a new edition. It would be great if some Saskatchewan publisher would step up to the plate and reissue this much-needed retrospective of Lindner, hopefully adding about 50 more images. Should that ever happen, please, next time, don’t forget the prints.

Forest, 1940, linocut print, 11.5 x 14" (Not pictured in book)

Puffballs, 1971, watercolor, 29.5 x 21.25"

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Images of the Land: Canadian Block Prints, 1919–1945 by Patricia Ainslie

A thoroughly detailed history, gorgeously illustrated
Images of the Land is a catalog of fine art prints that was published in 1984 in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta. A second edition of the book was published in 1985. Author Patricia Ainslie provides an excellent, authoritative overview of the art form of relief printmaking in Canada during the years between the World Wars. The book is packed with stunning and beautifully reproduced images of woodcuts, linocuts, and wood engravings from this important, transformative period in Canadian art.

When comparing the 20th-century art histories of Canada and America, one thing that sets the former apart from the latter is a greater respect for the landscape as subject matter. Most of the works in this book are landscapes, though there are many examples of figurative work as well. Another characteristic of Canadian art from this period is an emphasis on representational style over abstraction. The vast majority of the works reproduced in this book are executed in the style of traditional realism, many with a hint of art nouveau, but a few of the prints show the burgeoning influence of European modernism, particularly cubism and expressionism. Unlike in America, where New York City dominated the art world, the Canadian artistic scene was divided between several isolated urban centers which developed in parallel and interacted on a somewhat limited basis. Though Toronto, as the population center of the nation, staked its claim early on as the fine art center of Canada, it received plenty of competition from Montreal, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. The text of the book is divided into geographic sections by province, for the most part moving from east to west. Ainslie gives an overview of the development of block printing in each region, and provides brief biographies of every artist represented. To read the book from beginning to end can be a bit dry, like reading a stack of resumés, but Ainslie has certainly done meticulous research, and the book is an excellent reference on its subject.

Among the key players in block printing in Canada were members of the famous group of early modernist landscape painters The Group of Seven. Edwin Holgate, Franklin Carmichael, A.J. Casson, and Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald were all active in printmaking, and J.E.H. MacDonald produced a few prints as well. His son Thoreau MacDonald went on to work extensively in wood engraving and became sort of Canada’s answer to Rockwell Kent. Toronto’s Laurence Hyde, another excellent wood engraver, would eventually go on to produce a beautiful novel in woodcuts, Southern Cross. In Montreal, Cecil Tremayne Buller created startlingly powerful, modernist figurative works. Winnipeg was home to Walter J. Phillips, a master of the Japanese-style color woodcut, while in Saskatoon, Ernest Lindner produced exquisitely intricate black-and-white wood engravings of the lush Canadian forests. This sampling only scratches the surface of the dozens of artists included, who range from the renowned to the obscure.

There are only eight color plates, but most of the works were originally created in black and white anyway. In addition to the large images scattered throughout the book, this catalog has the added bonus of an appendix featuring small black-and-white images of all 179 prints in the exhibition. This makes Images of the Land an invaluable resource for printmakers. As a block printer myself, I continually refer to this book for examples of how to represent various natural textures like water, mountains, trees, or sky. Unfortunately, this book went out of print long ago, and copies are hard to find. However, if you practice the art of block printing or just love woodcut prints, it is worth seeking out a used copy and paying a significant sum for it. It will soon become a treasured book in your collection, as it is in mine.

Walter J. Phillips, York Boat on Lake Winnipeg, 1930, color woodcut, 26.1 x 35.2 cm

Eric Bergman, Still Life, 1931, wood engraving, 16.6 x 14.2 cm

Edwin Headley Holgate, Totem Poles, 1926, woodcut, 15.0 x 12.3 cm

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