Bertram Brooker
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Bertram (Richard) Brooker
(b Croydon, London, 31 March 1888; d Toronto, 21 March 1955). Canadian painter, critic and writer of English birth. He emigrated in 1905 to Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. In 1921 he moved to Toronto to work as an editor and publisher. He is best known as a pioneer of abstract painting in Canada. His show (1927) at Toronto's Arts & Letters Club was the first solo exhibition of abstract art by a Canadian artist. His early work is characterized by the bold non-objective imagery seen in the complex Sounds Assembling (1928; Winnipeg, A.G.). After 1930 he reassessed his artistic direction: he turned first to figurative imagery (e.g. Torso, 1937; Ottawa, N.G.) and then looking to Cubism he re-examined the nature of abstraction in his painting, without returning to the non-objectivity of his earlier work. Between 1926 and 1930 Brooker wrote 'The Seven Arts', a syndicated column of art criticism for the Southam Press. In addition, he edited The Yearbook of the Arts in Canada (1928-9; 1936) and, under the pseudonym of Richard Surrey, he wrote three books on advertising. His novel Think of the Earth won the first Governor General's Prize for Literature in 1936; he later published two other novels. Throughout his life he was an active participant in the Canadian cultural scene and he continued to paint and exhibit his art.
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Bertram Brooker
| Bertram Brooker | |
|---|---|
 Brooker painting in his studio, 1943 |
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| Birth name | Bertram Richard Brooker |
| Born | 31 March 1888 Croydon, England, |
| Died | March 22, 1955 (aged 66) |
| Nationality | English-Canadian |
| Field | Writing, Painting, Music |
| Movement | Abstract impressionism |
| Influenced by | LeMoine Fitzgerald |
| Awards | Governor General's 1936 Award for Fiction |
Bertram Richard Brooker (March 31, 1888 – March 22, 1955) was a Canadian writer, painter, musician, and advertising agency executive.
Born in Croydon, England, to Richard Brooker and Mary Ann (Skinner) Brooker, he moved to Portage la Prairie, Manitoba in 1905 with his family. In 1913 he rented a movie theatre in Neepawa, Manitoba. That same year he married Mary Aurilla (“Rill”) Porter. In 1914 he became editor of the Portage Review, a local newspaper. In 1915 he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Engineers in Winnipeg. After the war he worked for The Winnipeg Tribune, The Regina Leader-Post and The Winnipeg Free Press.
He moved to Toronto, Ontario in 1921 and joined the staff of Marketing magazine. Brooker served as the magazine's editor and publisher from 1924 until 1926. In 1923, he published his first book, Subconscious Selling. In 1929 he joined the staff of the J.J. Gibbons Advertising Agency.
In 1931 Brooker was embroiled in a controversy about nudity in art when a painting of his was removed from a gallery exhibition because it contained nudity.[1] Brooker later wrote the essay "Nudes and Prudes" in 1931 as a rebuke.[2]
In 1936, Brooker's novel Think of the Earth (1936) became the first work to win the Governor General's Award for Fiction. In 1940 he joined the staff of the MacLaren Advertising Co.
Brooker is regarded as the first Canadian abstract impressionist. He was strongly influenced in his development as an artist by LeMoine Fitzgerald.
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Contents
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Selected bibliography
- Subconscious Selling (1923)
- Layout Technique in Advertising (1929), writing as Richard W. Surrey
- Copy Technique in Advertising (1930), writing as Richard W. Surrey
- Elijah (1930), drawings
- Think of the Earth (1936)
- The Tangled Miracle (1936), writing as Huxley Hearne[3]
- The Robber (1949)
- Sounds Assembling: The Poetry of Bertram Brooker (1980)
Notes
- ^ Biography of Bertram Brooker, retrieved on May 25th 2007.
- ^ Nudes and Prudes by Bertram Brooker, retrieved on May 25th 2007.
- ^ Clara Thomas, Canadian Novelists 1920-1945, Longmans, Green and Comoany, Toronto, 1946 p. 16
References
- Reid, Dennis. Bertram Brooker, 1888-1955 Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1973.
External links
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