BRITISH COLUMBIA ARTISTS  

Harry Tauber

July 19 1900 - February 5 1975

B.C. College of Arts Ltd. (1933 - 1935)
Tauber's Puppet Players



Portrait of Tauber by Alec Dalgleish

Harry Tauber was a Viennese architect and artist, born in Austria. He arrived in Vancouver in the early 1930s after completing two projects in Toronto in 1930 and 1931. In 1931 he acted in the play The Theatre of the Soul by Evreinov with the Vancouver Little Theater Association. His B.C. College of Arts c.v. noted that he did "marionette theatre plays" at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1932. He established himself as a flamboyant artist, teacher, and lecturer.

He was one of the three founding directors of the B.C. College of Arts in Vancouver when it opened in 1933. According to an unpublished interview with Jack Shadbolt, Tauber was an imposing man, who dressed eccentrically, had a glass eye, a large black beard, smoked cigars, and lectured about "the lost continent of Mu" to his students as incense burned, lights (and his glass eye) flashed, and mystical music played.


Tauber c.v. from B.C. College of Arts Pre-Prospectus 1933

   
Tauber c.v. from B.C. College of Arts Prospectus 1933

After the College of Arts closed at the end of the 1935 school year, he traveled to Nootka with Jock Macdonald, Macdonald's wife Barbara, and Leslie Planta. At Nootka the group tried to make a living while Jock painted, refer to letter in references.

After leaving Nootka, Tauber returned to Vancouver, but eventually moved to the United States, where he died at Honolulu, Hawaii in 1975.


GROUP EXHIBITIONS
DATE EXHIBITION ARTWORK

References

B.C. College of Arts Pre-Prospectus 1933

B.C. College of Arts Prospectus 1933

Letter from Mrs. J.W.G. (Jock) Macdonald 1969.
   Courtesy Vancouver Art Gallery Library & Archives

FROM DESOLATION TO SPLENDOUR (refer to FDTS77)

VANCOUVER: ART AND ARTISTS 1931 - 1983; various authors
      1983, ISBN 0-920095-00-3, 440 pages; Vancouver Art Gallery
      List of works; artists' biographies; credits; no index (see partial index)
      Poster for Tauber's Puppet Players illustrated with players names listed, page 57.

Collection of the National Gallery of Canada
      https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/harry-tauber

Clippings


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