Arthur Henry Howard Heming’s (1870‱940) paintings and illustrations symbolize Canada. At the height of his career, Heming was among Canada’s best-known artists, gaining particular attention in the United States and Europe. Heming’s paintings, drawings, prints and writings cemented Canada’s image as “The Great White North,” a wilderness paradise for outdoor adventure. The Florence Griswold Museum is the only venue in the United States for the international exhibition “Arthur Heming: Chronicler of the North,” on view February 8⁊une 2.
Organized by Museum London in London, Ontario, from Canadian and American museums and private collections, the exhibition is the first retrospective that explores and provides insight into the artist’s achievements. As part of the exhibition, examples of Impressionist-influenced works by members of Canada’s influential painters’ ensemble known as the Group of Seven are shown in contrast to Heming’s narrative, action-packed images.
The Florence Griswold Museum is an especially fitting location to exhibit Heming’s art. As a regular at the Lyme Art Colony and a close friend of Florence Griswold, Heming is best remembered in America for his memoir of life in the Griswold boardinghouse (now the Florence Griswold Museum). This memoir, titled Miss Florence and the Artists of Old Lyme , will be reissued in a new edition on the occasion of the exhibition.
Heming exhibited his work regularly in galleries, sometimes alongside the Group of Seven, and with greatest success in a British solo show in 1934. His work extols Canada as a sort of snowy Eden, even as it recognizes the hardship of life beyond the frontier. Realistic and narrative in nature, the work for which he gained the most attention is also often surreal, populated by “flying” bears, deer and canoes and fanciful snowscapes. “In Canada’s Fairyland” (collection of the Art Gallery of Hamilton) features a deer leaping between snow-laden bushes whose incredible shapes almost suggest snowmen come to life.
Heming’s subjects and approach differed radically from that of the Group of Seven, whose artwork offered more of a personal response to the Canadian landscape. Their goal was to express the native essence that radiated from the land and flora.
Heming’s set of 12 oil paintings on the Canadian fur trade (many of which are represented in the exhibition) were introduced in the Globe (Toronto) on June 30, 1920. Their relevance to the cultural history of Canada was recognized immediately. Described as “representing one great phase of the country’s national life,” the series was hailed as a “national collection.” It is in these paintings that one sees some of the best examples of Heming’s methods.
He restricts himself to a spare palette of black, white, grays and yellow, imparting a structural clarity and simplicity to define forms, pattern and massing to great graphic effect. The large scale of the works, each measuring 30 by 40 inches (or vice versa), provides a monumentality befitting Heming’s grand vision of “far north” and heightens the drama of the scene. Tension between man and nature, man and animal, and even between man and man is a recurring theme in Heming’s work.
In “The Otter Poachers,” 1919 (collection of the Royal Ontario Museum), the perpetrators in the foreground, focused on their illegal bounty, are oblivious to the imminent danger. Only through careful viewing of Heming’s entire tableau does one become aware of a third man, half-visible as a reflection in the open water, with rifle cocked to defend his territory.
The Florence Griswold Museum is at 96 Lyme Street. For information, 860-434-5542 or www.florencegriswoldmuseum.org .
