extraordinary amount of detail in these, compared to my usual things.” This series can be understood, though, not just as a tribute to Isaacs and his community but to Canada itself, a Canada that had—in the end— served Kurelek well. Exhibitions of his art were proliferating from coast to coast, eleven books on his art had been published, and he had much to be thankful for. But it was, as well, a moment of buoyant optimism across the country. In the glowing aftermath of Expo 67, where Kurelek’s art had been displayed in the Ukrainian Pavilion, the late
himself in a moment of self-encounter. What kind of man would he be? Completed during Kurelek’s stay at Lourdes, France, in 1975 (one of his several pilgrimages to Christian sites), Jewish Life in Canada was thus a long-gestating act of personal atonement, and one to which he brought special attention and care. “I wanted to do my bit in undoing some of the injustices Jews have suffered at the hands of Christians,” he told Arnold, adding that it constituted “some of the most intensive painting I have ever done… because of the
sixties and seventies saw the blossoming of multiculturalism as a Canadian ideal—one that extolled the Canadian mosaic versus the American melting pot. Every different newcomer culture was to be honoured and preserved for its distinct attributes and histories, a policy ultimately enshrined in Pierre Trudeau’s Canadian Multicultural- ism Act of 1971. Writing in his essay “The Development of Ethnic Consciousness in a Canadian Painter,” Kurelek asserts that “my experience has helped me to appreciate how fortunate I and other people of various
origins are to be living in Canada,” adding the caveat, “Although we cannot always share our heritage, we can at least express it in freedom.” He continues: “There is no longer any excuse for anyone in this country to be ashamed of his cultural background. Canada has a multicultural society. The days of Anglo-Saxon domination are gone or nearly gone.” As Patricia Morley relates in her essential biography of Kurelek, when his Ukrainian
Above: A Zionist Society in Montreal Honouring its University Grads, 1975
Left: Jewish Baker’s Sabbath, Edmonton, 1975
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