Horton’s Venice – Yesterday and Today

December 1 – 21, 2011
At 2260 Oak Bay Avenue

OPENING RECEPTION
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2011   6 – 8 PM
Oak Bay Gallery Walk Evening

John Horton in attendance.  Karel Roessingh, pianist.

John Horton’s lifelong love affair with the sea and maritime industries is readily apparent in his paintings and his lifestyle.  At 16 he joined the Royal Navy as a boy seaman and served in the Pacific, (witnessing hydrogen bomb explosions) Atlantic, and finally in the Arctic (1st Cod War).  Since moving to Canada in 1966, John has devoted over 35 years of his life to volunteer search and rescue on the Fraser River on the Steveston Lifeboat, based in Steveston.  At the same time he has cruised British Columbia, Washington and Alaska producing a scrupulously realistic body of work.  Everything from work boats of all kinds and ages to a series of paintings depicting Captain George Vancouver’s discovery of the west coast of North America.  His attention to detail and his technical accuracy are legendary and he makes no apologies for this quest for perfection. 

Such devotion does not go unrecognized.  Horton’s oils are highly prized by galleries, museums and private collections the world over.  Two recent historical commissions of an 1863 naval engagement in Galveston Texas were unveiled at a gala event in Galveston.  John also produced a major work depicting Babe Ruth departing Vancouver on the Empress of Japan in 1934.  John is regularly invited to work with our Canadian Navy and joined them on RIMPAC’04 for 5 weeks, a short submersion with the submarine HMCS Windsor out of Halifax, Canada and an historical journey aboard HMCS Vancouver, from Vancouver, Washington, down the Columbia River to Nootka Sound and finally into the harbour of Vancouver British Columbia in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Captain George Vancouver.  He was honoured in 2002 to receive the Queen’s Gold Jubilee Medal, and recently to receive the Governor General’s Caring Citizen Award.  A book about John was published by Heritage House – John M. Horton, Mariner Artist – and it features 81 of John’s paintings and is available through mary@johnhorton.ca.  John was chosen to paint 3 of the 6 historic paintings that depict the Canadian Navy’s 100 year history, the centennial of which was celebrated in 2010.  He put together a major exhibition of his Canadian Navy paintings which were displayed first at the Maritime Museum of BC in Victoria and then at the Vancouver Maritime Museum.  After a research trip to Venice, he had continued his work on a Venice exhibition and also continuing his research about Captain Vancouver having just returned from Alaska where he travelled on his boat to sketch and photograph.

In 2009 John was invited by Winchester Galleries to paint a “Venice Exhibition”.  This meant going to Venice to gather sketch material and experience the “feel” of this fabulous old city.  He has attempted to paint Venice as he had seen it- in perhaps a new light – not just the tourist view.  While some paintings are historic others illustrate the working crumbling fabric of today’s Venice.