Available Work: Donald Jarvis, Abstract Artist

An abstract artist from Vancouver, Donald (Don) Jarvis (1923-2001) was a naturally gifted painter from the start. He attended the Vancouver School of Art and Design, graduating in 1948.

His mentor, Lawren Harris, who exhibited at Petley Jones Gallery in 2017, persuaded Jarvis to study under Hans Hofmann, the abstract expressionist, in New York City. During this period, Donald Jarvis created his celebrated collection, New York Drawings.

 

 

“I see the painter as an instrument, a function, a conduit of the essential unity. My work is metaphor, never simile. I make no distinction between subject and object, inner and outer, maker and viewer. I am continually surprised by what arises on the canvas or the paper.”

Donald Jarvis, Canadian Abstract Artist

 

On returning to Vancouver in 1950, Donald Jarvis had a solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Additionally, that same year, the National Gallery of Canada acquired two of his canvases.

Jarvis became an instructor at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, where he taught for the next 36 years. His proximity to the vast, unspoiled, sometimes daunting vistas of Canada’s west coast provided him a lifetime of access to breath-taking and poignant scenes from which he could draw inspiration as a disciplined and visionary artist.

Featured artworks are available through the Petley Jones Gallery.