George Paginton on show in Fredericton, New Brunswick at the Beaverbrook and Gallery 78 until July 2022! March 29 2022

To celebrate the current exhibitions in Fredericton, New Brunswick – Beaverbrook Art Gallery running April 2 to July 14, 2022 and Gallery 78 running April 1 to 30, 2022 – and after two successful exhibitions at the Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives and the Toronto Railway Museum, Wall Fiction's Featured Finds are paintings of Quebec and Atlantic Canada. 

Paginton first visited Quebec's Isle d'Orleans in 1927 with his Toronto Daily Star co-worker, Charlie Hagar. His next painting trip east focused on Atlantic Canada in 1932 to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the Lower St. Lawrence. Becoming a favourite of the artist, he returned in 1934 visiting Barachois, Gaspe and Perce Rock along with parts of Vermont and Massachusetts. 

Paginton was becoming a known Canadian artist at this time and exhibited his Eastern Canada paintings at the Robert Simpson Company Art Gallery in 1934 and again in 1936. His next known exhibition would be with the Art Association of Montreal in a juried group show in 1940 with Berthe Des Clayes, Marc Fortin, Jean Paul Lemieux, Henri Masson, David Milne, Anne Savage, Frederick Varley and Kathleen Morris and others.

“Delighted with the bold Canadianism in the Paginton canvases,” stated J.W. Beatty to the Toronto Daily Star on November 29, 1931 while reviewing Paginton’s first art exhibition and “expressed professional appreciation” to Paginton’s paintings. (Beatty was principal of the Ontario College of Art and had been Paginton’s art instructor in 1927.)
*
Paginton “indicates the ability and fine appreciation…for gradations of tone…and proves his ability to handle colour…He can successfully paint the wind,” stated a review in The Globe on March 3, 1934.

 

In 1941, Paginton took over J.W. Beatty's studio #4 in the Studio Building with A.Y. Jackson still working in Studio #1. Paginton once stated: "While in the Studio Building, I saw a lot of AY and became very fond of him – and admired his work very much."

Paginton continued exhibiting from 1941 to 1950 at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario) and with the Art Association of Montreal. He was invited by the St. John's Art Club in 1949 and 1951 when he painted a large series of Newfoundland landscapes.

Summer trips with his family continued to Isle d'Orleans, New Brunswick and other parts of Eastern Canada until the early 1970s.

Paginton is one of Canada's great plein air painters. His work is held by many esteemed private collectors and public and museum collections across Canada including the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Art Gallery of Algoma, Art Gallery of Northumberland, Art Gallery of Sudbury, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives, Robert McLaughlin Gallery and the City of Toronto, along with the National Capital Commission’s Official Residences Collection in Ottawa. 

Visit our Featured Finds section to see Eastern Canada paintings available for sale.

Gloucester, George Alfred Paginton, c. 1934