E J Hughes Canadian War Artist

"A penetrating study based on unique archival material and a deep analysis into hundreds of wartime works of art." —Tim Cook, author of The Fight for History: 75 Years of Forgetting, Remembering, and Remaking of Canada’s Second World War The third volume of this award-winning series showcases paintings and drawings E. J. Hughes created during the artist’s war service in Ottawa, England, Wales, and Alaska. In this, the third volume of an award-winning series on artist E. J. Hughes (1913–2007), Robert Amos turns his focus to Hughes’s service in the Second World War. The narrative begins with Hughes’s cadet days with the Seaforth Highlanders in Vancouver, followed by his enlistment at the Work Point Barracks in Esquimalt in 1939. Named the first “service artist” in 1941, he spent two winters in Ottawa before being posted to London where he was attached to different regiments in England and Wales. His paintings of camp life and convoys reflect his keen attention to the details of vehicles, artillery, and uniforms. In 1943 on the Alaskan island of Kiska, he transformed sub-zero weather and howling gales into a powerful document of this remote theatre of war. He returned to Ottawa where he worked until 1946—Canada’s first, last, and longest-serving War Artist of the Second World War. He was also the most prolific. The book features seventy artworks from the Canadian War Museum’s holdings, expanded with many personal photos and sketches from the artist’s papers. The narrative situates Hughes’s wartime work within the broader context of his life and his development as an artist. With the care and knowledge of a fellow artist, Amos draws the reader into this important chapter in the life of E. J. Hughes and Canadian art.

Winner of the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes' Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award Boat lovers of all ages and people who enjoy the scenery of BC’s coast will delight in this charming gift book, a worthy addition to books about BC’s art history. In the course of his career, one of BC’s most beloved painters, E. J. Hughes (1913–2007), depicted paddle wheelers, steamships, fishing boats, and car ferries. Now The E. J. Hughes Book of Boats brings many of his coastal paintings of boats together in one handsome volume—a book for art lovers and boating enthusiasts alike. Robert Amos is the official biographer of E. J. Hughes, and works with the participation of the Estate of E. J. Hughes. The Book of Boats follows the success of his two geographically-based volumes, E. J. Hughes Paints Vancouver Island (2018) and E. J. Hughes Paints British Columbia (2019). This new compendium features never-before-seen sketches and photographs accompanying full-page illustrations of some of the artist’s finest works.

A retrospective on one of BC’s most famous artists that features beautifully reproduced landscape paintings from all over mainland BC, and unveils new photographs, sketches, and ephemera from the artist’s estate. E. J. Hughes (1913–2007) is British Columbia’s best-loved landscape painter. His unashamedly picturesque views of the province are appreciated by art professionals and the public alike. Following the success of his previous volume, E. J. Hughes Paints Vancouver Island, author and artist Robert Amos now follows the footsteps of the artist as Hughes travelled throughout mainland British Columbia from Stanley Park to Savary Island, from Fraser Valley to the Okanagan, and from the Kootenays to the Rockies between the 1930s and 1970s. Working the with Estate of E. J. Hughes, Amos has created a nuanced representation of the activities and life of this extraordinarily talented and very private man. Both biography and monograph, this book features full-page, full-colour reproductions of Hughes’s finest paintings, many of them published here for the first time. Each painting is accompanied by supporting sketches, drawings, and photographs from Hughes’s personal archive.

Now available in paperback, this handsome retrospective on one of BC's most beloved artists unveils photographs, sketches, and ephemera from the artist's estate. The reputation of E. J. Hughes in British Columbia is second only to that of Emily Carr. His paintings, collected by every major gallery in our country, fetch more than $1 million at auction. Yet Hughes lived a notoriously private life. Hughes painted scenes from all over BC, but he especially loved Vancouver Island, and lived most of his 93 years at Shawnigan Lake and Duncan. This book features paintings from his beloved island home--from Sidney, past Goldstream and the Malahat to Cowichan Bay, Genoa Bay, and Maple Bay. With stops along the way, he painted scenes from Ladysmith, Nanaimo, Comox, and Courtenay. Hughes recorded the passing of an era, capturing the coastal steamships, log booms, fishing boats, and the landscapes he treasured. This book includes a biography of the artist, highlights more than 60 of his finest works alongside sketches and photos revealing his studio methods, and shares his handwritten notes.

Harold Mortimer-Lamb’s name is in the index of almost every book written on the history of Canadian art, yet his place in that world has never been clear. Photographer, writer, painter, promoter—he was a man of many parts and the ideal patron and friend to some of Canada's most famous artists, including A.Y. Jackson, Emily Carr, and Jack Shadbolt. At the centre of his story are his relationships with painter Frederick Varley and young student Vera Weatherbie, whom Mortimer-Lamb, at the age of seventy, eventually married, when she was just thirty. Profusely illustrated with his photos, paintings, and the art he collected, Harold Mortimer-Lamb: The Art Lover brings into focus an unknown chapter in Canadian art history.

The latest instalment in the award-winning series on the life and work of E. J. Hughes brings the reader into this very private artist’s home and studio on Shawnigan Lake. In the most intimate volume yet about prolific Canadian painter E. J. Hughes, the artist’s official biographer Robert Amos brings us Life at the Lake, capturing the years Hughes and his wife Fern spent at their home on Shawnigan Lake, Vancouver Island. Following Hughes’s service as a war artist, in 1946 he and Fern looked for a place to buy in Victoria. Then, in 1951, they spotted an ad for a property on Shawnigan Lake, about 40 kilometres north of the city. The quiet lakeside existence he and Fern established suited his temperament and artistic needs perfectly. In addition to reproductions of all of his Shawnigan-themed oils and watercolours, the book includes dozens of sketches, colour notes, local news clippings, letters, and illuminating excerpts from recorded interviews with Pat Salmon, Hughes’s longtime friend and assistant. With a keen appreciation for the quotidian, Amos captures lakeside life at Shawnigan, with Hughes’s observations on birds and trees, and trips to local shops and restaurants. He tells of an unusually snowy winter that slowed the delivery of finished paintings to the post office and, on a more sombre note, the gradual progression of Fern’s muscular dystrophy. The book shares insights into the relationships—with Fern, Pat, and agent Max Stern—that allowed Hughes to achieve great success as an artist while living a quiet existence at Shawnigan Lake. For the Hughes fan and anyone who enjoys learning about the everyday lives of artists, this latest addition to the Hughes pictorial canon is a must.

Victoria's Chinatown is Canada's oldest Chinese neighbourhood and has a lineage unbroken since 1858. With large-format colour photos and photocollages, Robert Amos and Kileasa Wong take you behind the doors of the 29 private clubs that make up the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, where you'll see the gilded altars, antique art and ornate furniture that grace the meeting halls. Through stunning pictures and text in both Chinese and English, you will meet the club members and take an inside look at the culture of this complex community. Inside Chinatown is sure to become a landmark publication chronicling the vibrant heritage of Chinese Canadians. Inside Chinatown was voted Monday Magazine's Non-Fiction Book of the Year, and authors Robert Amos and Kileasa Wong were presented with a 2010 Outstanding Achievement Award from BC Heritage for their work on Inside Chinatown.

After more than 15 years of interviews and studio photographs, Amos has created 33 panoramic collages, and even more revealing images with his words. Not merely biography, this book includes examples of their completed works and the insight that only another artist-and deft arts writer-can. From Ted Harrison, to E.J. Hughes, to Myfanwy Pavelic, this stunning compilation offers an unprecedented intimacy with Canada's foremost artists, and is proof that art work in progress is art in itself.