Ken Lochhead

Ottawa resident was prairies art legendOBITUARY: Kenneth Lochhead
By Canadian Press




An artist once at the forefront of Canada’s modern art movement was remembered Monday for his colossal contribution to the Saskatchewan arts community.

Kenneth Lochhead died in his Ottawa home on the weekend following a long illness. Earlier this year, Lochhead won a Governor General’s Award for the visual arts. He was also given the Order of Canada in 1971.

Lochhead was director of the University of Saskatchewan School of Art at Regina College in 1950, and was the first person to head the MacKenzie Art Gallery.

He also started the Emma Lake Professional Artists’ Workshop in 1955. The workshop drew significant artists and critics to Saskatchewan, offering local artists international recognition.

In 1961, Lochhead, Doug Morton, Art McKay, Ron Bloore and Ted Godwin exhibited at Ottawa’s National Gallery of Canada in the show Five Painters From Regina. The show established Regina firmly on the national arts map and the group was briefly the hottest thing in Canadian art.


“He was generous, elegant, graceful, handsome, funny,” said Kate Davis, director of the MacKenzie gallery. “He was such a generous mentor to so many people as an artist, as a teacher and as a friend.”

Meagan Perreault was on the receiving end of Lochhead’s generosity to younger artists. The Regina owner of Nouveau Gallery met Lochhead at a retrospective of his career last year.

“He had a huge impact,” Perreault said of Lochhead’s work, which varied from acrylic to watercolour, enamel and sculpture. “He had a very distinctive style that you could see in each piece, even though they were so different. But his personality always came through in the work.”

Though he left Saskatchewan in the mid-1960s for teaching posts in Manitoba, Toronto and Ottawa, his work endured.

“He continued to be very connected to Saskatchewan in many ways and really is a significant part of our art history,” said Davis.

A memorial reception in honour of Lochhead will be held in Ottawa July 27 at the Carleton University Art Gallery.