Leonard and Reva Brooks: Artists in Exile in San Miguel de Allende

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Journalist John Virtue’s thoroughly researched and well-written
“warts and all” biography of self-exiled artists, Leonard and Reva
Brooks, reads like an action-packed novel with a cast of international
characters. Using an overarching chronological structure for the book,
Virtue laces each chapter with the biographical details, world events,
and political machinations that shaped the domineering artist-musician
husband and his wilfully submissive photographer wife.

The author relates in intimate and gripping detail the indigence,
despair, addiction, infidelity, jealousy, emotional volatility,
internecine rivalry, miscarriages, accusations of communism, allegations
of attempted murder, threats of suicide, and the alienation of Canadian
gallery owners and critics that they suffered through while establishing
the world-renowned art and music colony of San Miguel de Allende. While
maintaining lifelong friendships with Toronto artist York Wilson and
Vancouver poet and professor Earle Birney, the Brooks crossed paths for
shorter or longer periods of time with the likes of Marshall McLuhan,
Ansel Adams, Pierre Trudeau, Murray Adaskin, Clyde Gilmour, Edward
Steichen, Liona Boyd, Toni Onley, and literally hundreds of others of
similar stature.

Although Virtue admits he is not qualified to critique the Brooks’
work, he establishes a credible appreciation for their artistic output
by using numerous authoritative quotations from well-known artists,
critics, and gallery owners to illustrate how widely acclaimed Reva was
for her photography and how well regarded Leonard was for his art,
music, and eight volumes of art instruction. In addition, Virtue
includes numerous notes for each chapter, a bibliography, and a list of
the exhibitions from the 1930s to 2001 for both of them.

In the foreword, well-known critic Scott Symon writes, “I’ve never
known a biography more thoroughly researched. Whatever there is to know
about the Brooks, Virtue knows.” And now, we do too.