Robert G. Kemp - Background

Early Career

I did not wake up suddenly at the age of 55, decide to become an artist, move to Blue Mountain and begin to paint. My desire to draw was evident from my earliest years, but the route I took to Blue Mountain as a self-employed artist was certainly not a direct one and involved a period of development and determination which is necessary in every artistic career. My mother likes to remind me that I showed some inclination to draw at the age of three, but my career as an artist began, in my memory, at the age of seven when I fell under the spell of Walt Disney cartoons and began to copy the simple line structures while entertaining dreams of joining Disney Studios in California when I grew up. By 1937, when I was nine, another art form, the comic strip, was sweeping the country and comic books were available in all the stores. This became my obsession for the next five years, and I remember that I spent hours absorbing inspiration from Alex Raymond's "Flash Gordon," Milton Caniffs "Terry and the Pirates" and Harold Foster's "Prince Valiant." Working in the simple black and white, pen and ink medium was to serve me well as I learned, during this period, to draw competently without the aid of colour. At 13 I had the privilege of meeting the creator of Superman, Joe Schuster, but by 14, when I did my last comic strip, I had realized that the world of the professional comic strip artist was one of demanding deadlines, and my own work habits seemed more geared to a loose structure, so I drifted at 15 into a field closer to magazine illustration.

The war seemed to intervene at this point, and I interrupted a four year art course at Northern Vocational & Technical Institute in Toronto for the more academic environment of St. Andrew's College in Aurora when my family moved to Midland to be with my father, who was doing war work there. I remember that the text books I used during this period which weren't illustrated, had their margins filled with pencil sketches. I never lost the desire to be an artist in this two year period, went to art shows in Toronto at every opportunity, and in 1946, when the family returned to Toronto, I resumed the art course at Northern Vocational.

In the summer of 1947 I enrolled in the Banff School of Fine Arts with the intention of learning how to do landscapes as a complement to the figure illustrations I was doing at the time. For some reason I couldn't find the right teacher to suit my temperament and I drifted off by myself to try to evolve a style of my own. In the last week of the course I discovered the work of Walter J. Phillips, who was having a show of watercolours there, and that exposure provided me with the necessary enthusiasm and motivation to tackle this exciting medium. As I look back on the art course at Northern Vocational, I realize that it gave me a good foundation in the basics of design, lettering, life and still life, illustration, modeling and art history. My student friends and I dreamed of exciting careers as professional artists, but the message which came through our curriculum was that it would be more realistic for us to enter the commercial art world just to be able to eat regularly. John Bennett, who wrote the introduction for this book, was one of my teachers during that period, and I remember that he encouraged us, in spite of the bitter realities of the Canadian art market, to work outdoors by taking our class to neighbouring parks in order to free us and our spirits from the comforts, and possibly the constrictions, of a studio atmosphere.

Work World

Following graduation I spent two months preparing my portfolio for the many studios I would visit before being employed by Taber, Dulmage and Feheley, where I served my apprenticeship while I studied art by correspondence through the Famous Artists Course in Westport, Connecticut I remember that Norman Rockwell received my first piece of work and took me to task for lack of preparation. This hand slapping was the kind of constructive criticism that led me in future years to make a concentrated effort to spend many hours of preliminary preparation for my work.

During the summer of 1950 I became acquainted with the work of the American artists, Adolph Triedler and Winslow Homer. Their tropical watercolours, coupled with my own attraction to Hawaii and the tropical environment, led me to the first of three visits to Hawaii. Other tropical painting sessions included Antigua and Bermuda. Hawaii was my real passion as there I could surf, become proficient on the ukulele and generally absorb the freedom of the place. During my first two month stay I produced a large illustrated 82 page book on my visit, and letters I wrote, while under the influence of the tropics, were always covered with free, loose watercolour studies of the water, the shoreline and the tropical atmosphere.

I remember that my friends started to marry during this time, and I would respond by giving them a landscape painting as a wedding gift. Painting on location in Ontario took place around Lake Simcoe where my parents went for summer holidays in those early years. The south shore provided marvelous material, and I began to work freely in tempera, which I always carried around in jars. Someone who had acquired two of these early paintings in 1953 brought them back at my request recently so that I could photograph them. Seeing them again was for me like having a family reunion after long years of separation. By 1954 I was working on point of sale pieces for a display company and creating ideas rather than executing someone else's concepts. A natural progression seemed to follow when I became art director with Hayhurst Advertising in Toronto. Here I did photography, layout, assembly and learned how to use lettering as an effective communication device. This period also gave me confidence to sell a product, which I drew upon when I took the step to become a self employed artist in 1961.

Self Employment

In 1958 I built my original chalet at Blue Mountain and began to enjoy the outdoor life and especially the skiing that the area offered. While on a ski trip in New Hampshire I met a local artist, David C. Baker, who had established a roadside art gallery which allowed him to function without big city representation. The concept appealed to me and the more I thought about it, the more desirable it became. To test the waters, so to speak, I spent a month doing a set of nine temperas, working from my winter chalet in Craigleith. The whole experience was so mentally and artistically rewarding that it left no doubt that this was meant to be my ultimate vocation. Three months after having grafted a studio to my chalet, I moved to Blue Mountain and began my career as a full time professional artist. In 1966 I married Barbara Flexman of Ottawa. Our son, Christopher, was born in 1967 and Gordon in 1970. Now life repeats itself: Christopher attends St. Andrews and Gordon shows promise as an artist. All of us share in the process of being self-employed by opening our home to visitors to the Gallery and making them feel welcome.

That move in 1961 gave me an opportunity to enjoy life fully and to produce a wealth of original work through which I can share the joy I feel.

Robert G. Kemp - 1983