Harold Town fonds [multiple media]
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Hierarchy 
Harold Town fonds [multiple media]
Hierarchical level:FondsContext of this record:Fonds includes:19 lower level description(s)View lower level description(s) -
Finding aid Textual records (Electronic) Finding aid is a file list MSS2103 (90: Open)
http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf001/p000000629.pdfMoving images and sound recordings (Electronic) Item level descriptions available in the MINISIS database. (90: Open)Graphic material (Electronic) Some item level descriptions are available at the item level in the database 1982-079 & 2002-R5740 (90: Open) -
Record information Harold Town fonds [multiple media]
Date:1902-1991.Reference:R5740-0-7-E, MG30-D404Type of material:Textual material, Art, Photographs, Sound recordings, Moving imagesFound in:Archives / Collections and FondsItem ID number:107231Date(s):1902-1991.Place of creation:No place, unknown, or undeterminedExtent:13.98 m of textual records.
4,446 photographs : multiple processes, b&w and col.
85 paintings : oil, acrylic and lucite.
ca. 1083 drawings : pencil, ink, charcoal, gouache, chalk, pastel, conte, blow torch.
257 watercolours.
146 prints : lithographs and monographs.
19 medals : gold, silver, bronze and other.
13 collages.
9 artifacts.
ca. 45 autographs.
3 videocassettes (ca. 1 h).
12 audio reels (13 h, 38 min).
1 film reel (9 min).
2 lithographic stones.Language of material:EnglishScope and content:Fonds consists of the personal papers and business records of the artist Harold Town, and documents thoroughly his artistic career, sales and exhibitions, commissions, commercial work, writing and publishing, and his personal and professional relationships. The extensive correspondence includes letters from a wide variety of Canadian artists and writers, with copies of Town's replies. Town was a member of a number of artists' organizations, as well as being a founding member of the famous Painters 11. The material contains documentation on the Painters 11 and the Canadian Society of Graphic Art, as well as on the Art Directors Club, Canadian Group of Painters and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. The papers have been arranged in the following 15 series: Education and juvenilia; Memorabilia; Personal correspondence; Alphabetical correspondence; General correspondence; Business files; Financial records; Subject files; Canadian Society of Graphic Art; Publishing projects; Writings and criticism by Harold Town; Writings and criticism by others; Inventory records; Reference material and clippings; Exhibition catalogues and other printed material.
Fonds also consists of photographic material relating to the personal life and career of Town including records pertaining to many of his projects, portraits of the artist by various photographers, photos of his Old Orchard farm, and his paintings, drawings and murals. The photographs are organized in the following four series: Personal 1949-1990; Exhibitions 1961-1988; Paintings, drawings and sculptures 1950-1989; and Publishing projects 1970-1976.
Fonds includes art records which date from Town's childhood to the 1980s. The works have been arranged into the following sub-series: Juvenilia drawings and school notes; Art school studies; Sketchbooks; Commercial illustrations; Drawings, prints and mixed media works; Art series works; Medallic material; and Portraits.
Fonds also consists of audio and video recordings of interviews, conversations and broadcasts with Town as well as a film of his work entitled Pyramid of Roses, 1960-1983.Provenance:Biography/Administrative history:Town, Harold, 1924-1990 : Harold Town was born in Toronto in 1924 and studied at the Western Technical School and Ontario College of Art (grad. 1944). After a short stint drawing "Minute Man" for Whiz Comics (1943), Town began his career as a free-lance commercial artist, doing illustrations and covers for Mayfair and Maclean's and other magazines. During the 1950s, he became known for his single autographic prints, and he had his first solo show at the Picture Loan Society in 1954. In 1953, he was a founding member of the Painters 11 (along with Jack Bush, Oscar Cahen, Hortense Gordon, Tom Hodgson, Alexandra Luke, Jock Macdonald, Ray Mead, Kazua Nakamura, William Ronald, and Walter Yarwood). In 1956, he was chosen to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale, and in 1957 and 1961 at the Sao Paulo Biennale.
In 1960, he had a solo show at the Norman McKenzie Art Gallery in Regina and, in 1961, one at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. His first solo show in New York was at the Andrew Morris Gallery in 1962.
Town won a number of mural commissions in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including ones for the St. Lawrence Seaway Power Project in Cornwall, the North York Public Library, the Telegram Building in Toronto, and Malton Airport. He also illustrated an anthology of love poems for McClelland and Stewart, Love where the nights are long (1962), and designed the sets and costumes for a National Ballet of Canada production of The house of Atreus (1964).
Collections of his work have been published as Enigmas (1964), Harold Town drawings (1969), and Silent stars, sound stars, film stars (1971). Town wrote about the Toronto artist Albert Franck in his book Albert Franck: keeper of the lanes (1974) and collaborated with David Silcox on a book about Tom Thomson, The silence and the storm (1977). He contributed a regular column to Toronto Life, 1966-1967, and reviews to the Globe and Mail, in addition to other journalism pieces.
As well as being a member of the Painters 11, Town was a member of the Canadian Society of Graphic Art and the Art Directors' Club of Toronto (and served on their executives in the 1950s); he was also a member of the Canadian Group of Painters, the Ontario Society of Artists, and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Retrospectives of his work were shown at the Art Gallery of Windsor in 1975 and at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1986; in 1987, an exhibition, Harold Town: works on paper, was held at the Canada House Gallery in London, England. Christopher Chapman's film, Pyramid of roses, featuring Town's Vale variations series, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980.
Chosen five times to represent Canada in major international exhibitions (Venice, Sao Paulo and Documenta III, Kassel, Germany), Harold Town exhibited widely internationally, and won prizes for his work at the International Exhibition of Drawings and Prints in Jugoslavia, 1957, at Sao Paulo, 1957, at the International Exhibition of Drawings and Prints in Lugano, 1958, in New York (Guggenheim), 1960, and at the Bienal Americana de Grabado in Santiago, 1963. Town's work is held in collections at the National Gallery of Canada; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo; Cleveland Museum of Art; Detroit Art Institute; Vancouver Art Gallery; Guggenheim Museum, New York: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; le Musée des Beaux-arts, Montreal; and in many other Canadian and international collections. Town received an honorary degree from York University in 1966 and the Order of Canada in 1968.
Harold Town died in 1990.Additional information:General note:Received in 1996 from the Harold Town Estate through his executors David Silcox, Robert Fulford, Glen Frankfurter and Philip Matthews.Container note(s):155 : Contains litho stone
157 : Contains litho stoneSource:PrivateFormer archival reference no.:MG30-D404 -
Ordering and viewing options Conditions of access:Textual records[Consultation Open]Finding aid box [FA 2103] 153[Consultation Closed]Graphic (art)[Consultation Open]Volume [R5740][Consultation Open]155;[Consultation Open]157;[Consultation Open]Item no. assigned by LAC [R5740][Consultation Open]1--74;[Consultation Open]76--154;[Consultation Open]Graphic (photo)[Consultation Open]Sound recordings[Consultation Open]Moving images (film)[Consultation Open]Moving images (video)[Consultation Open]Terms of use:Photographs Terms of use for the photographic material is still to be determined. Credit: name of photographer / National Archives of Canada / copy negative number.
Art material Reproduction and use in any form requires the permission of the estate of Harold Town. Various copyrights. Copyright expires 50 years from date of production. The estate of Harold Town holds copyright until 2041.You can order materials in advance to be ready for you when you visit. You will need a user card to do this.
Cannot visit us on site? You can purchase a copy to be sent to you. Some restrictions may apply.
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