Illingworth Kerr

b. 1905 - d. 1989

Illingworth "Buck" Kerr was a Canadian painter, illustrator and writer. He is best known for his landscape paintings of the Saskatchewan and Alberta prairies and foothills. Kerr attended Central Technical School, Toronto, and Ontario College of Art. He also studied at Westminster School of Art, London, in 1936 and, returning to Canada, taught at Vancouver School of Art (1945-47). In 1947 he became director of the art department of the Provincial Institute of Technology in Calgary. His early landscape style reflects the influence of Lawren Harris in his long, curving brush strokes and emphasis on design. He applied paint heavily, giving relief to an otherwise flat, spatial quality in his work. In later works Kerr used a broken brushstroke style that creates visual tension to counteract this 2-dimensionality. Named to the Order of Canada in 1983, he was given a retrospective exhibition ("Harvest of the Spirit") at 9 major public galleries in 1985. His works can be seen in the Edmonton Art Gallery, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, in the Lethbridge University Collection and in the Mendel Gallery, Saskatoon.

Excerpt courtesy of the Canadian Encyclopedia