Debuting this week, the new ‘Like Father, Like Daughter’ exhibit at Minden’s Agnes Jamieson Gallery is heavily influenced by a man who, for years, studiously learned alongside one of Canada’s famous ‘Group of Seven’.
The family showcase will feature about 70 pieces from landscape artist Maurice Hall Haycock, his daughters Kathy Haycock and Karole Haycock-Pittman, and granddaughter Erika Pittman. It opened Sept. 18 and runs until Nov. 15.
Several of the paintings on show in the “colourful” exhibit bear a striking resemblance to the style made famous by A.Y. Jackson – one of Canada’s most prominent painters and a founding member of the group that has inspired artists for generations.
Kathy Haycock, in a recent interview with The Highlander, said her dad met Jackson in the late 1920s on an expedition to Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. A surveyor, the Haycock patriarch struck up a close friendship with Jackson and, after being moved by some of the artist’s works, decided he’d try his hand at painting too.
After graduating from Princeton University with a degree in mineralogy, Haycock started working in Ottawa in 1931. Wowed by the natural landscapes surrounding him, he jumped into his new pastime, painting whenever and wherever he could.
He kept in touch with Jackson and, after a several years of honing his craft, was invited to paint alongside him in the 1940s. Kathy said her dad followed in Jackson’s footsteps, trading in his easel for a wooden sketch-box that he’d carry around with him everywhere he went.
Plein air painting, done on location usually in the wilderness, was Haycock’s chosen method – one that his descendants still use today. He is famous for being the first artist to paint in-person at the North Pole.
Kathy said she didn’t really recognize or appreciate her father’s talents as a child but waded into the arts in her adult years through weaving. It wasn’t until 1998, a decade after her father passed, that she picked up a paintbrush for the first time.
“My sister was visiting from Nova Scotia, which is where both our parents are from, and she presented me with my dad’s old paintbox and materials. She sat me down, showed me what to do and, immediately, I was hooked,” Kathy said. “After that, I just wanted to paint again and again and again.”
Her style mimics that of her father – bright colours showcasing the beauty and serenity of nature undisturbed. There are scenes depicted from nearby Algonquin Park and rural paradises from all corners of the country. Many of the younger Haycocks’ paintings are of locations sought out by their father decades earlier.
“I tried to pick a nice selection that covered my dad’s whole career and early paintings from myself, Karole and Erika, right up to present day – it shows a progression in style… the gist of the exhibition is to cover 100 years of travelling and exploring in the wilderness,” Kathy said.
She will be in attendance for the show’s opening reception Sept. 20 from 1 to 3 p.m.
“I’m very excited – this show is going to be kind of like our family legacy,” Kathy said.
