SOLD. Original John Scott (May 11, 1950 – February 17, 2022)
National Gallery of Canada:
John Scott (May 11, 1950 – February 17, 2022)
“One of the realities is that any kind of production, especially since the industrial age, is going to involve a great loss of human life. It can be said that blood is the lubricant of the modern industrial world.” – John Scott, 1997
Original artwork by John Scott (born 1951). Acquired directly from the artist’s studio in Toronto in the late 1990’s and gifted to an acquaintance of mine. Titled ‘Rocket with Eye Ball’ but true title in unknown. Gold Pastel (with dark shades of green) & Charcoal on Paper. Measures (with black metal frame) 20 inches width x 26 inches height. A truly striking piece.
Private Collection / SOLD
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John Scott, Canadian artist was born in 1950 and died in 2022.
Research Source: https://www.artistjohnscott.com/
Born in Windsor, Ontario, Scott began working in a factory on assembly lines at 15 to support his family, later becoming sensitized to the local labour movement and larger political issues. One writer who knew him at the time says he was a street artist. Scott followed his brother to Toronto,and after some time spent at Rochdale College, University of Toronto and elsewhere, eventually landed at the Ontario College of Art in 1972, at the tail end of a tumultuous time when the school, as Scott says, was changing to a more conceptual, rather than a didactic, approach. “It was great. It was a complete mess,” Scott recalled. Scott never finished his studies, but transitioned into running the school’s gallery. From there, Scott says, he “sort of gradually slipped in” to teaching. After 38 years, he retired in 2019.
Scott`s graphic drawings in black paint and charcoal with their deliberately childlike motifs, hand and boot marks and misspellings are his signature, along with his Trans-Am Apocalypse No. 2 (1993), a black, modified Pontiac Trans-Am car that has text scratched into its surface from the Bible’s Book of Revelations of St. John the Evangelist (National Gallery of Canada). Among his themes are power, class, industrialization and fear. In 1982, he said that he believes all art has the potential for social and political change.
His work first came to critical attention in 1976 in a group show at Sable-Castelli Gallery in Toronto. His first solo show was at Carmen Lamanna Gallery in Toronto in 1981. From the time of his early work, he has used images of skull-like bunny-man figures and technology in his drawings. Around 2005, he began using a figure he called Dark Commander, a sad jokey Napoleon-like cartoon to represent evil.
The works he created could be unique. For instance, for a holocaust memorial work in 1989, he had a seven-digit number, similar to victims of German concentration camps, and a rose tattooed on his inner thigh. He then had this section of skin surgically removed. The drying skin was then displayed in a raised glass case at the entrance to the exhibition. He called this work Selbst.
He has had many solo and group shows, both in Canada and abroad, including a 12-year retrospective titled John Scott: Edge City, curated by Joan Murray for the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa in 1994, and in 1997, John Scott: Engines of Anxiety, a two-venue solo exhibition curated by David Liss at the Gallery of the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. These shows culminated in Dark Commander: The Art of John Scott, a 40-year retrospective organized by associate director Daniel Strong for The Falconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Iowa in 2014 with a major, 50-page book catalogue. This two-part exhibition travelled to McMaster Museum of Art (the first half) and the Art Gallery of Hamilton (the second half) in 2015-2016. [9]
His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa and many other institutions. In 2002, he co-authored “Shiva`s Really Scary Gifts” of his cocktail napkin drawings, with Ann MacDonald of the Doris McCarthy Gallery, Toronto.
In 2000, Scott was awarded the inaugural Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. He lives in Toronto and is represented by Nicholas Metivier Gallery.
Born in Windsor, ON, Canada in 1950
EDUCATION
1972-76 Ontario College of Art, University of Toronto and Centennial College, Toronto, ON
AWARDS
2000 Governor General’s Award for the Visual Arts
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 ‘Hazmat Ballet’, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto,
2016 ‘Fearful Symmetry: The Art of John Scott’, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton
2015 ‘Dark Commander: The Art of John Scott’, McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton
2014 ‘Dark Star’, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto
‘Dark Commander – The Art of John Scott’ Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell, Iowa
2012 ‘Mean Machine’ Art Gallery of Windsor, ON
2011 Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto
2009 Ron Mandos Gallery, Amsterdam The Netherlands
2008 “Event Horizon”, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto
2006 ‘Icons, Winners and Losers’, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto
2004 ‘Hypertension’, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto
2003 Babylon Zero’, Carlton University, Ottawa, ON
2001 ‘Terminal Island’, S.P.I.N. Gallery, Toronto
1998 ‘John Scott/Hometown Exhibition’, Art Gallery of Windsor, ON
‘Engines of Anxiety’, Saidye Bronfman Centre Art Gallery, Montreal, PQ
‘Additional Exhibition Space/Engines of Anxiety’, Montreal Museum of
Fine Art, Montreal, PQ
‘Stealth’, Oakville Galleries, Gairloch Gallery, Oakville, ON
1996 ‘The Engine of History’, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
1995 ‘Live Coverage’, Hart House, J.J. Barnicke Gallery, University of Toronto
‘Drawings & Paintings’, Bravo Exhibitoin Space, City TV/Bravo, Toronto
‘Drawings & Paintings’, Studio Exhibition, 48 Abel Street, Toronto
1994 ‘Edge City/Retrospective’, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON
1992 ‘Leviathan’, Lake Galleries, Toronto
1989 ‘New Drawings & Paintings’, Carmen Lamanna Gallery, Toronto
1986 ‘New Large Drawings’, Carmen Lamanna Gallery, Toronto
1984 ’Drawings & Paintings’, Carmen Lamanna Gallery, Toronto
‘Exchange’, Air Gallery, London, England
‘Drawing Installation’, Southern AB Art Gallery, Lethbridge, AB
1983 ‘New Drawings & Paintings’, Carmen Lamanna Gallery, Toronto
1981 ‘A collection of New & Old Drawings’. Carmen Lamanna Gallery, Toronto
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2017-18 ‘Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters’, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
2010 “Art at Work” Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga
2009 ‘Mayhem’ Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto
2005 ‘Just My Imagination,’ Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto ‘Kinesis’,
Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON
2003 ‘Drawing Through the Centuries’, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2001 ‘Urgent Witness Drawn Remains’, YYZ Artists Outlet, Toronto
1998-1999 ‘Fundamental Freedoms’, The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON
1998 ‘Environmental Intervention’, Artifice/Musique Plus Building, Montreal, PQ
‘Abstract Figuration’, The Worksa International Arts Festival, Edmonton, AB
1997 ‘Collage’, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON
‘Gilded Corps’, Cold City Gallery, Toronto
‘Urgent Witness Drawn Remains’, YYZ Artists’ Outlet, Toronto
‘Narrative’, Archive Digital Art Gallery, Toronto
Anti-Megacity Exhibition’, St.Lawrence Hall, Toronto
1996 ‘Intolerance’, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, AB
‘Reviews/Monumental New City’, Mercer Union, Toronto
1995 ‘Reading /Language of Culture’, Hamilton Art Gallery, Hamilton, ON
1993 ‘Louise Noguchi/John Scott/ F.Vivenza’, Birganart Gallery, Toronto
1991 ‘Ilya Kabakov/John Scott’, The Power Plant, Toronto
‘Working Notes and Drawings/Extension’, Print and Drawing Gallery, Toronto
1990 ‘Friends of the Gallery, Grunwald Gallery, Toronto
‘The Artist and the Environment’, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto ‘Housing/A Right’,
The Power Plant, Toronto
1989 ‘Director’s Choice’, Barrie Gallery Project, Barrie, ON
1988 ‘Structure of Desire’, Gallery 76, Toronto
‘Enchantment/Disturbance’, The Power Plant, Toronto
‘Waterworks/ 100 Workers’, R.C. Harris Filtration Plant, Toronto
1987 ‘Abstraction/Drawings’, OR Gallery, Vancouver, BC
1985 ‘Interiors’, Burlington Cultural Centre, Burlington, ON
‘Group Exhibiton’, Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, ON
1984 ‘Content- Contexte’, Mercer Union, Toronto
Expron’, Centre des Arts Contemporains, Montreal, PQ
‘Toronto Painting’, Art Gallery of ON, Toronto, ON
‘Group Exhibition’, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB
‘Group Exhibition’, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, NB
‘Group Exhibition’, Rodman Arts Centre, St. Catherines, ON
‘Group Exhibition’, Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, ON
‘Group Exhibition’, Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, AB
‘Group Exhibition’, The Stratford, Stratford, ON
1983 ‘Six Toronto Artists in Amsterdam’, Fodor Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
‘New Forms of Figuration’, Centre for Inter-American Relations, New York, USA
1982 ‘Language and Representation’, A Space, Toronto, ON
CATALOGUES
2015 Dark Commander: The Art of John Scott, Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College,
Iowa Essays by Daniel Strong, Ihor Holubizky, Gary Michael Dault, Deirdre Hanna
2008 John Scott: Event Horizon, Nicholas Metivier Gallery/Galerie Ron Mandos
2003 Babylon Zero, Michael Bell
2002 Shiva’s Really Scary Gifts As Told To Ann MacDonald, Coach House Books
2001 Urgent Witness Drawn Remains, YYZ Artists Outlet
1997 Engines of Anxiety, Saidye Bronfman Centre & Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Wildlife, Koffler Gallery
John Scott/Mono Graff, Hamilton Art Gallery
1994 Reading, Language of Culture, Hamilton Art Gallery
1993 Project Room, John Scott, Mercer Union
1991 Ilya Kabakov/John Scott, The Power Plant
1987 Abstraction/Drawings, Or Gallery
1982 Fragments, Contents, Scale, 49th Parallel, NYC
1980 Seven Toronto Artists Based in NYC, Artists Space (Metro Pictures)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2016 ‘Raising the Dead: The Resurrection of Trans Am Apocalypse No. 3’/ Toronto Star
/ Murray Whyte
2011 ‘A History of Oppression and Despair’/ Toronto Star/ Murray Whyte
2006 ‘Exhibit A – Jet Aesthetics’ / The Globe and Mail /Gary Michael Dault
‘One of the Last Truly Angry Artists’ / Toronto Star / Peter Goddard
2004 ‘The One and Only John Scott’ The Globe and Mail/ Gary Michael Dault
‘Voodoo Science and Vortex Imagery’ / National Post / Julia Dault
2001 ‘Urgent drawings both raw and powerful’ / The Globe and Mail/ Gary Michael
Dault
Battle Scars’/ Toronto Life / Betty Ann Jordan
‘Conflict on Canvas’/ Two Tribes/ by Sarah Milroy/ The Globe and Mail
1999 The Arts’/ Blake Gopnick
1997 ‘Four Horsemen Ditch Steeds for Exhibit’s Trans Am’/ Julia Duln/
The Washington Times
1996 Stealth/ Exhibition Release / Richard Rhodes and Oakville Galleries
1995 Work Magazine/ Cover Photo and Four Page Photo and Story/ Sharon Brookes
C Magazine/ Winter Edition/ by Joyce Mason and Douglas Ord
1976-97 Reviews- Art Forum, Globe and Mail (4), Toronto Star, Now, Eye, Financial Post, Mirror, Voir,
Monteal Gazette, Le Devoir, C Magazine, Canadian Art, Fuse, Mix,
Hour, Washington Times
1978-96 Extensive writings published in Canadian Art/ Parachute/ File/ C Magazine, etc.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
1984 File Magazine/ Vol. 8, No.3/ Diane Frankenstein/ John Mary Shelley Scott
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON
Art Gallery of Stratford, Stratford, ON
Art Gallery of Peel, Brampton, ON
Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, ON
Museum London, London, ON
Department of External Affairs, Ottawa, ON
BOS Insurance, Mississauga, ON
Bennett Jones, Toronto, ON
Joseph L. Rotman Centre, Toronto, ON
Hamilton Art Gallery, Hamilton, ON
Windsor Art Gallery, Windsor, ON
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON
University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, AB
Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, AB
Rodman Hall Arts Centre, St. Catherines, ON
Carleton University, Ottawa, ON
UBC Fine Arts Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Osler Hoskin & Harcourt, Toronto/ Ottawa/ Calgary, Canada
ARTIST BIO: Natioanl Gallery of Ottawa, Canada.
John Scott views himself as a political activist and blue-collar artist. His work combines counterculture aesthetics of the late 1970s and the 1980s with a sociological ideology that is wary of the consequences and human cost of a capitalist ethos and economy. Through drawings, installations and transformed objects, Scott presents an apocalyptic vision of a world ravaged by war and threatened by destruction.
Before Scott completed grade 10, he had left school to work in a factory. He soon became involved in union activity and would later become sensitized to workers’ rights and larger political issues. He was also influenced by the Toronto street culture of heavy rock music and fast cars.
Scott’s bold and rough graphic drawings are characteristically crude, often made with the cheapest materials at hand. One of his working methods was to repeatedly soak paper in solvent and develop an image by grinding-in dark pigments, thick black paint, graphite and charcoal. Scott has depicted dark warplanes hovering over destroyed landscapes devoid of human presence. He has also drawn rabbit-like figures to stand in for the anxiety-ridden human being, the harassed victim of the technological threat and militaristic oppression. Heavy dark lines record an impending sense of tragedy and terror.
Perhaps Scott’s best-known work, Trans-Am Apocalypse No. 2 (1993) is a black, modified Pontiac Trans-Am that has text scratched into its surface from the Bible’s Book of Revelations of St. John the Evangelist. Scott’s intent was to suggest that, if the apocalyptic horsemen were to appear today, the muscle car would be a more impressive vehicle for their arrival. Scott considers the car’s substantial link to a macho masculine identity, suggesting that the car is symbolic of flaws of the male sex, which may drive humanity to destruction. As cars also generate pollution, he sees environmental damage as another step toward an apocalyptic world.
John Scott was the recipient of a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2000. He lives in Toronto.
MORE:
John Scott (born 1950) is one of Canada’s most prolific and respected artists. For the last 50 years, Scott has been creating his signature, raw-edge drawings that act as social commentary on the dark side of politics, war and human nature. Scott uses childlike motifs in an intelligent and witty manner, often repeating characters such as the Dark Commander and Terrified Bunny, who represent evil and vulnerability in the human condition. In addition to drawing, Scott is renowned for his machine-hybrid sculptures. His Trans-Am Apocalypse, 1993, is a black-painted Pontiac Trans-Am with the Bible’s Book of Revelations etched into its surface.
John Scott was born in Windsor, Ontario in 1950 and currently lives in Toronto. In 2000, Scott was awarded the inaugural Governor General’s Award in Visual Arts and Media. He has exhibited extensively across Canada for the past 40 years and is in the collections of many major institutions in Canada and the United States including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Grinnell College Museum of Art, Iowa. In 2014, Scott had his first major travelling survey exhibition in the United States at the Grinnell College Museum of Art.
Early life
Born in 1950 in Windsor, Ontario, Scott began working in a factory on assembly lines at 15 to support his family, later becoming sensitized to the local labour movement and larger political issues. One writer who knew him at the time says he was a street artist. Scott followed his brother to Toronto, and after some time spent at Rochdale College, University of Toronto and elsewhere, eventually landed at the Ontario College of Art in 1972, at the tail end of a tumultuous time when the school, as Scott says, was changing to a more conceptual, rather than a didactic, approach. “It was great. It was a complete mess,” Scott recalled. Scott never finished his studies, but transitioned into running the school’s gallery. From there, Scott says, he “sort of gradually slipped in” to teaching. In 2019, he retired after spending 38 years there.
Career
Scott`s graphic drawings in black paint and charcoal with their deliberately childlike motifs, hand and boot marks and misspellings are his signature, along with his Trans-Am Apocalypse No. 2 (1993), a black, modified Pontiac Trans-Am car that has text scratched into its surface from the Bible’s Book of Revelations of St. John the Evangelist (National Gallery of Canada). Among his themes are power, class, industrialization and fear. In 1982, he said that he believes all art has the potential for social and political change.
His work first came to critical attention in 1976 in a group show at Sable-Castelli Gallery in Toronto. His first solo show was at Carmen Lamanna Gallery in Toronto in 1981. From the time of his early work, he has used images of skull-like bunny-man figures and technology in his drawings. Around 2005, he began using a figure he called Dark Commander, a sad jokey Napoleon-like cartoon to represent evil.
The works he created could be unique. For instance, for a holocaust memorial work in 1989, he had a seven-digit number, similar to victims of German concentration camps, and a rose tattooed on his inner thigh. He then had this section of skin surgically removed. The drying skin was then displayed in a raised glass case at the entrance to the exhibition. He called this work Selbst.
He has had many solo and group shows, both in Canada and abroad, including a 12-year retrospective titled John Scott: Edge City, curated by Joan Murray for the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa in 1994, and in 1997, John Scott: Engines of Anxiety, a two-venue solo exhibition curated by David Liss at the Gallery of the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. These shows culminated in Dark Commander: The Art of John Scott, a 40-year retrospective organized by associate director Daniel Strong for The Falconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Iowa in 2014 with a major, 50-page book catalogue. This two-part exhibition travelled to McMaster Museum of Art (the first half) and the Art Gallery of Hamilton (the second half) in 2015-2016.
His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and many other institutions. In 2002, he co-authored “Shiva`s Really Scary Gifts” of his cocktail napkin drawings, with Ann MacDonald of the Doris McCarthy Gallery, Toronto.
In 2000, Scott was awarded the inaugural Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. He lives in Toronto and is represented by Nicholas Metivier Gallery.
RESEARCH:
Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htr079T93o8
https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/john-scott
https://metiviergallery.com/artists/58-john-scott/overview/
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2011/11/13/a_history_of_oppression_and_despair.html?rf
Market Value Estimates: https://www.invaluable.com/artist/scott-john-3570tv14h4/sold-at-auction-prices/
References
- ^ Jump up to: abcd “John Scott”. www.gallery.ca. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
- ^ Jump up to: abc Weir, Stephen. “The Sci-Fi Visions Of Canadian Artist John Scott”. www.huffingtonpost.ca. Huffington Post, 2016. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
- ^ Jump up to: abcd Manzocco, Natalia. “A degree of chaos: John Scott leaves OCAD University after 38 years”. nowtoronto.com. Nowtoronto, May 8, 2019. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
- ^ Whyte, Murray. “A History of Oppression and Despair”. www.thestar.com. Toronto Star, Nov 13, 2011. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
- ^ Jump up to: ab “John Scott: Artist`s Talk, McMaster Art Museum, Nov 19, 2015”. www.youtube.com. You Tube. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
- ^ Scott, Jay. “The making and re-making of John Scott, Canadian Art vol. 3 #2 summer 1986”. ccca.concordia.ca. Concordia University, Montreal. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
- ^ Goddard, Peter. “One of the last true angry artists”(PDF). website-metiviergallery.artlogic.net. Toronto Star, Feb 11, 2006. Retrieved November 29, 2020.
- ^ Liss, David. “Dark Star Rising”. website-metiviergallery.artlogic.net. Metivier Gallery, Toronto, 2008 article. Retrieved November 29, 2020.
- ^ Whyte, Murray. “Raising the Dead: The Resurrection of Trans Am Apocalypse No. 3”. www.thestar.com. Toronto Star, Feb 23, 2016. Retrieved November 28, 2020.
- ^ “Menunkind: New Iron Men Paintings”. www.artoronto.ca. artoronto.ca. Retrieved November 28, 2020.