“They’re not trees. They’re not trees at all. They’re just perpendiculars and horizontals. That’s what they are to me. Why do I repeat them? Repetition is what painting is all about, repetition of themes, repetition of subject matter. Paint. That’s all a painter wants to do.”
(Stanley Cosgrove, 1980)
Stanley Cosgrove was a painter, draughtsman and muralist. Over a seventy-year career, he maintained a consistent artistic path, creating serene figurative representations that explored three principal subjects: forests, women and still lifes. In his paintings, he placed a strong emphasis on formal relationships through an economy of means, with simplified forms and a limited palette.
Cosgrove attended Montreal’s École des Beaux-Arts from 1929 to 1935, studying under Henri Charpentier, Joseph Saint-Charles, and Charles Maillard. At the Art Association of Montreal, he took drawing classes from Edwin Holgate, who became a lifelong friend. After completing his studies, Cosgrove spent several months painting in the Gaspé, with the support of arts benefactor Huntley Drummond, and three summers in the Charlevoix, along with Jean Paul Lemieux, Jean Palardy and Jori Smith. In 1938, he assisted Holgate in painting a mural for the Canadian pavilion at the New York World’s Fair.
The year 1939 proved to be pivotal for Cosgrove. He held his first solo show at the École des Beaux-Arts de Québec, and exhibited with the Contemporary Arts Society and at the Musée du Québec. Then, he was awarded a bursary to study in France. As war had broken out, however, he changed his focus to Mexico, having long taken an interest in that country’s culture and art, particularly in the frescoes of José Clemente Orozco.
Cosgrove arrived in Mexico in early 1940 and remained there for four years. He studied under Manuel Rodriguez Lozano at the Academia de San Carlos, Mexico City, and spent eight intensely rewarding months apprenticing with Orozco. From him, Cosgrove learned the fresco techniques that would have an enduring effect on his work: the application of thin, dry layers of paint; the attention to form and composition; the subtle colours.
Cosgrove returned to Montreal at the end of 1943 to take up a part-time teaching position at the École des Beaux-Arts. Over the next decade, he was very productive, participating in numerous exhibitions and signing an exclusive contract with the Dominion Gallery. He joined the Canadian Group of Painters and was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy. In 1953, Cosgrove and his good friend Goodridge Roberts both found themselves painting in the south of France on government bursaries. In 1958, he left his teaching position at the École des Beaux-Arts and, for the next four decades, devoted himself to painting and exhibiting his work.
The simplified forms and multiple perspectives of Still-life (1947) contribute to the liveliness of this work. The Blue Dress (1949) is typical of Cosgrove’s portraits, with its placid Madonna-like figure, outlined in black. Landscape (1954), with its sense of peace and calm, and its absence of humans, is characteristic of his forest scenes.
Courtesy the National Gallery of Canada
COSGROVE, Stanley Morel
1911-2002
Born in Montreal, Que., he studied art under Charles Millard, Henri Charpentier, Maurice Félix, and Joseph Saint-Charles at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Mtl. (1928-35); with Edwin Holgate at the AAM (1936). He enjoyed the rare honour of being invited to exhibit at the Provincial Museum of Quebec while still a student (1939). About this time he was following the work of French painters like Braque and Rouault. He received a Quebec Provincial scholarship to study in France for four years but WW II forced a change in his plans and he was allowed to study on the American continent and he chose New York City. He arrived there with his wife but after two months found it unsatisfactory and finally chose Mexico. There he became interested in fresco painting and approached José Clemente Orozco through teacher friends. Orozco, who had just begun a fresco for the Hospital Jesus de Nazareno in Mexico City, agreed to let him help with some part of the work. Cosgrove arrived each morning at six to help mix mortar, prepare plaster, and work at everything from cleaning brushes to sweeping floors. On the fresco itself, Cosgrove was allowed to apply flat colours of the background and sketch in the principal points like head, hands and feet, enlarging from Orozco’s original sketch. Orozco himself had learned fresco painting from Italian encyclopedias and advised Cosgrove to go to the Italians for further knowledge of this medium. Cosgrove stayed with Orozco until the completion of the fresco. It was from working with Orozco that Cosgrove felt a new assurance and directness not experienced in his previous work. During his four years in Mexico he also did still lifes, landscapes, street and market scenes. On his return to Canada in 1944 he concentrated for a time on still lifes, using colours, sometimes with distorted forms and sometimes more representational showing traces of Braque. Some of his portraits had the characteristic outlines, particularly in the face, of work by Rouault, proving highly effective. In 1953 Cosgrove was awarded a Government fellowship to study in France (1953-54). Also in 1953 he was active in the field of textile designing, working with a group of artists which included Robert Lapalme, Paul-Emile Borduas, Maurice Raymond and F.C.A. Sullivan. He had also worked for wider interest in modern fresco painting in Canada, particularly in churches, and he conducted classes in this medium at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He completed a fresco for the entrance of the philosophy and science wing of the Collège de Saint Laurent near Montreal. Paul Duval in his Canadian Drawings and Prints ranked Cosgrove among the gifted of Canadian figure draughtsmen and used two examples of his drawings for illustration. Dorothy Pfeiffer in a review of Cosgrove’s 1961 exhibition at the Dominion Gallery, Mtl., stated “. . . The salient qualities of Cosgrove’s fresco-like paintings of woody landscapes, still life, portraits and figures studies . . . would appear to lie in their combined purity and certainty of expression; in their unusual transparency and depth of color and texture; as well as in a certain mystical sense of detachment from the hurly-burly of everyday life . . . .” He also held solo shows at the Continental Galleries (Mtl.) and Laing Galleries (Tor.). He is represented in the following collections: NGC, Ott.; AGO, Tor.; Mendel Coll., Saskatoon; Firestone Coll., Ott.; Museum of Modern Art, NYC and elsewhere. Affiliations: CAS 1939; CGP 1950; ARCA 1951; RCA 1967.
Colin S. MacDonald
A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, volumes 1-8 by Colin S. MacDonald, and volume 9 (online only), by Anne Newlands and Judith Parker
National Gallery of Canada / Musée des beaux-arts du Canada