BRITISH COLUMBIA ARTISTS

VISUAL ARTS BRITISH COLUMBIA

Compiled and Edited by B.C. Cultural Programme, Arts Information Service Department of the Provincial Secretary, 1977 A 3-ring binder of indices to visual artists of British Columbia Artist information includes a "code key" to the following:    * - Biographic information on file at BC Cultural Programme office    PW - Information also available from the Dept. of Public Works    1931 - birth year, unless excluded by artist's request    Ex - indicates a significant exhibition which was:      1m - one man      2m - two man      pub - in a public gallery      pri - in a private gallery      74 - the year of the artist's first such show      PC - at least 1 of artist's work is in a public collection      freelance - indicates freelance work is accepted by the artist (also a list of MEDIA IDENTIFIERS such as Paint, Graph, Sculpt, Photo). Artist addresses and telephone numbers are also given.

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The listing of artist addresses greatly enhances the value of the catalogue, as it shows the distribution of artists across this huge province, and helps us understand the distances between us, and also between the artists as they live and work. The place names are redolent of B.C. history and geography: Canyon, Granite, Grindrod, Riondel, Rose Prairie, Telkwa, 100 Mile House, Parson, Seton Portage, Port Alice, Ladysmith, Queen Charlotte City, Whaletown ... from north to south, east to west, and all nooks and crannies in between.

Of the artists who received only their second reference, a small number of other references were the first listed for about half of them:
   1968 BC Artists exhibition
   1977 West Vancouver Sketch Club list of members
   1980 BC Art Collection
   1985 AGGV list of BC Women Artists
   2005 VPL list of files on BC Artists

The information in the publication is generally quite accurate, although a few errors were spotted, usually in alternate spellings of artist names. In these cases the name is entered here as given in the publication, and listed under that name in the BC Artist alphabetical artist index, but cross-referenced to the correct name. For example, the name given for Grace Melvin is Grace Mervin. Mervin is listed in the alphabetical index, but refers to the Melvin biography. The one relatively consistent error in the publication was in the alphabetical order of names, which has been corrected in the list below.