Sylvia McCarthy sits at her kitchen table with a faded black and white snapshot in her hand. The photo, its paper yellowed and ink faded, has taken on a dusty golden hue after decades in an album. It is a picture of a picture—a painting actually—one her husband Robert painted when he was just starting out as an artist more than 60 years ago.
Over the years Robert has painted so much that he sometimes loses track of the paintings he finished. “He often wonders what has happened to them and where they are,” said Sylvia.
With the help of their grandson, they set up a Facebook page to try to get colour pictures of the works he’s lost track of for his photo albums. Neither Robert nor Sylvia ever dreamed they would see a colour photo of the work Sylvia holds in her hand, let alone the original, but then sometimes unexpected wishes do come true.
“It was nice at Christmastime for someone to do that,” said Sylvia.
Tony and Jarl Omholt-Jensen live in Wetaskiwin, a small town just south of Edmonton. Jarl is a former Canadian olympic cross-country skier and competed in the 1972 games in Sapporo, Japan.
Tony received the painting as part of an inheritance from her uncle who lived in Vancouver, said Jarl.
They were curious about the painting of a sleeping cardinal that they had received. They could read the name of the artist but they were not sure whether it was painted in 1932 or 1952, so they went to their computer to see if they could find some answers. They found Robert’s Facebook page and after emailing back and forth a few times decided to do better than just take a picture and send it to the McCarthys—they decided to send the whole picture.
“It’s been a real pleasure to connect that painting with him again,” said Jarl, “especially since his wife appreciated it so much.”
Robert and Sylvia collected the painting, almost three feet by two feet, after it took a two-day bus trip from Alberta.
“We brought it home and opened it up and turned it over and it was just awesome,” said Sylvia. “It was such a nice Christmas present for Bob to see something that he did so long ago.”
After so long, Robert’s painting had collected a lot of dust and dirt so he set to cleaning it and when it was clean it was in remarkable condition.
Robert has painted as a hobby for almost 70 years but stepped it up in his retirement. He and Sylvia moved to Powell River about eight years ago and live on a piece of property south of town overlooking Malaspina Strait.
He is a member of Malaspina Arts Society and participated in this year’s Coast Cultural Alliance’s Sunshine Coast Art Crawl. He sells and shows his work in local galleries in Powell River and Lund.
Robert lived and worked in Vancouver for most his life. At 14 years old he picked up a paintbrush and palette seriously, though he admits to being drawn to expressing himself visually since he was old enough to hold a pencil. In the 1940s and 50s, he began to teach himself how to mix paints and experiment with different stroke techniques by trying to recreate photographs and paintings that caught his eye.
“That’s how I learned,” he said. “I took people that really had something and I tried to copy it. When I was copying these pictures, I was giving them away because you can’t sell them.”
He left school after junior high and started working in hotels to help his family. He watched the city grow over the decades. “I never mixed with the artists in those days,” he said. “I was too busy trying to make a living.”
Growing up next to Hastings Park Racetrack had an impact on his original work. He is still fascinated with the drama of the track with its galloping thoroughbreds, tiny jockeys and the crowds of spectators.
Through his career he worked at some of the city’s finest establishments such as Hotel Vancouver and the Terminal City Club, and met celebrities like Gary Cooper and Marilyn Monroe.
Through his connections, he had one of his images of The Lions in North Vancouver chosen for a Coots, now Hallmark, Christmas card. When Robert Filberg, who often stayed at Hotel Vancouver, realized Robert’s talent, seeing his work for Coots, he offered him a painting commission. Recently, he was pleasantly surprised to see the painting of sawmill workers that he had completed for Filberg.
“My life has always worked like that, one thing building on another,” he said.
Seeing pictures of famous paintings and photographs in the magazines of the day was important for his muse. On one such occasion, Robert came across the painting that would inspire the art Tony’s uncle would acquire. It was a work by American painter Toby Rosenthal in the Saturday Evening Post and it struck him as being particularly well done. Rosenthal painted through the later 19th and early 20th century and spent a considerable amount of time painting in Europe. While in Munich in 1896, Rosenthal painted The Cardinal’s Portrait, an image of a cardinal dressed in vestments dozing off as a frustrated monk tries to capture him as a stoic representative of the church. The painting is noted by art historians for the level of detail captured in its subjects’ faces, their costumes and the surrounding decor of the period.
Robert painted what he calls The Sleeping Cardinal in 1952 and Sylvia has always liked it.
“I’m not famous,” he said, “but I have been painting for a while.” Recently though, a lifetime of activity and a few falls have started to catch up with the painter. He finds it increasingly difficult to retrieve dropped paint tube caps and his hands are not as nimble as they once were. “But I’ve got a lot of unfinished work,” said Robert.
