Jack Kidder: Recuerdos; An Exhibition Organized and Circulated by the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

Virgil Hammock is head of the Canadian section of the International
Association of Art Critics and chair of the Department of Fine Arts at
Mount Allison University.

Jack Kidder is a 60-year-old American-born artist who has lived in Victoria, B.C., since 1964. Recuerdos (memories) is the title of an exhibition of his work that was shown in 1984 at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, who were the organizers, and the Burnaby Art Gallery in Burnaby, B.C.

The exhibition consisted of a series of 27 relatively small scale coloured drawings that have been executed in a highly realistic, meticulous fashion. They are of the facades of buildings and devoid of any human presence. The majority of these street views, and all but two of them illustrated in the catalogue, are from Mexico, hence the Spanish title of the exhibition. They appear from the nine colour reproductions in the catalogue to be masterfully done but, as nearly always, it is difficult to judge if the colour is accurate in the reproductions. The colour, as reproduced, gives the drawings the look of colour photographs rather than of colour as it exists in nature. This may be accurate, however, as the drawings are done from colour photographs taken by the artist.

There is an obsessiveness about the work that troubles me. Frank Nowasad, who wrote the text in the catalogue, states that it can take the artist up to a month, hunched over a drawing board and using a magnifying glass, to complete one of his small drawings. However, there are probably worse ways to spend a month than in reflection over reality.