An indication of the kind of public enthusiasm which the work of these artists generates occurred several years ago when the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, Ontario, staged a feature retrospective show of Marie Cecilia Guard's paintings.  Curatorial staff noted that interest and attendance at this show by people of all ages and from all backgrounds was exceptional.

 

Overview

OVERVIEW: Ken Phillips and Marie Cecilia Guard

 

  • Their story includes the artists' childhood during a fascinating golden age in Toronto, Phillips' and Guard's studies at the Ontario College of Art and in New York, their successes during the Depression years, how their work crystallized and matured, their experience teaching art, Ken's love affair with the dying theatres of Toronto, further exhibitions, the artists' trips to Europe in the seventies and eighties, and their powerful development in their final years. 

 

  • Working with an uncommon degree of technical mastery, their work often is compelling, always aiming to convey the heart of their subjects.
  •  As husband and wife, they frequently painted the same subjects, but from different (but complimentary) perspectives.  (The feminist beliefs that guided them dring the 30's and 40's when such views were unusual).
  • They both painted and drew landscapes, figures, architectural studies and still lifes in a number of media, Ken's specialty, elegiac Piranesi-like pen-and-ink renderings of Toronto buildings scheduled for demolition, and Marie's stunning life-sized nudes, painted in oil, are particularly noteworthy.
  • REFERENCE MATERIAL:  A comprehensive catalog is available, along with 300 slides and 100 black and white photographs representing all aspects of these artists' work.                                                                   


REFERENCES TO PHILLIPS AND GUARD IN:

  • A Dictionary of Canadian Artists. Colin S. Macdonald, Cdn. Paperbacks Publishing Ltd., 17 Gwynne Ave., Ottawa, Ont. K1Y 1X1, reprinted 1989
  • Ken Phillips - Vol 6.
  • NGC Info form received June 10, 1942.
  • Toronto Central Library 64: "He is at his superlative best when he reaches for mass and timelessness as in his studies of the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields at London."  Rae Corelli
  • Marie Cecilia Guard - National Gall Info Aug. 31, 1965.