Thaddeus Holownia
Thaddeus Holownia in 2016
Born (1949-07-02) July 2, 1949
Bury St Edmunds, England
NationalityEnglish-born Canadian
EducationUniversity of Windsor
Known forPhotographer
Awardsmember in 2000, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Canada Council for the Arts, American Institute of Graphic Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Fulbright Fellowship (2001)

Thaddeus Holownia RCA ONB FRSC (born July 2, 1949)[1] is a British-born Canadian artist and professor. He taught photography at Mount Allison University and served as the head of the Fine Arts Department, retiring in 2018.[2]

Career

Born in England, the family of Thaddeus Holownia immigrated to Canada when he was five.[3] He attended the University of Windsor, studying printmaking and communications and graduated in 1972. Initially part of Toronto’s art scene, he worked as a film editor before working at the National Film Board of Canada, and later joining the faculty of the Mount Allison University Fine Arts Department in 1977.[2][4][5]

Art Work

In Holownia’s large-scale photographs, he uses the idea of heightened perception to explore the traces humankind leaves on the landscape.[6] He often photographs the same sites and subjects over time, recording long-term transformations in detail.[5] About his work, he echoes Thoreau’s observation, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see”.[7] He favours a large-format banquet camera.[8] Holownia's pre-1989 work has been described as capturing the “slow violence” of environmental disaster.[5] An early series Holownia shot in Toronto features people posing with cars in urban areas that had been abandoned in favour of car-friendly suburbs.[5]

His photographs have been the subject of numerous exhibitions, including a forty-year retrospective, The Nature of Nature, The Photographs of Thaddeus Holownia 1976–2016, at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; The Terra Nova Suite, a 25 year survey of his work in Newfoundland & Labrador at the Provincial Gallery (The Rooms) in St. John's, Newfoundland; 24 Tree Studies for Henry David Thoreau at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and the Heckscher Museum in Huntington, New York.[9] His 1998 retrospective exhibition, Extended Vision: Photographs by Thaddeus Holownia 1978–1997, organized by the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, traveled across Canada and to the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City.[10] His photographs have been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Monet’s Legacy: Series, Order and Obsession at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, and Car Culture at the Heckscher Museum in Huntington, New York. In 2020, his photographs of the stone lintels in Paris were exhibited at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. The show titled Thaddeus Holownia: Lintels of Paris accompanied a book about the lintels published at the same time.[8]

Holownia`s photographs are in public collections such as the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa[1] and many eastern Canadian galleries, such as the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax (27 works).[11]

Honours

In 2000, Holownia was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and in 2001, he received a Fulbright Fellowship.[12][6] Holownia has been the recipient of grants and awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.[4] In 2015, he was named to the Order of New Brunswick.[13] In 2018, he was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada.[14]

Thaddeus Holownia now lives in Jolicure, New Brunswick.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 "Thaddeus Holownia". National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved 2021-02-14.
  2. 1 2 "Mt. Allison research professor Thaddeus Holownia inducted into the Royal Society of Canada, 2018". www.mta.ca. Mount Alison University. Retrieved 2021-02-14.
  3. ↑ Fog Forest Gallery: biography
  4. 1 2 Website biography
  5. 1 2 3 4 Bassnett, Sarah; Parsons, Sarah (2023). Photography in Canada, 1839–1989: An Illustrated History. Toronto: Art Canada Institute. ISBN 978-1-4871-0309-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. 1 2 3 "Tangled up in Walden". Globe and Mail. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  7. ↑ "The Nature of Nature: The Photographs of Thadeus Holownia Exhibition". /www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca. Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax. Retrieved 2021-02-14.
  8. 1 2 "Exhibitions". /beaverbrookartgallery.org. Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Retrieved 19 June 2023.
  9. ↑ "Tree Studies for Henry David Thoreau, 2001-2003". www.beaverbrookartgallery.org. Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton. Retrieved 2021-02-14.
  10. ↑ Extended vision: the photography of Thaddeus Holownia 1975-1997. Worldcat. OCLC 757584288. Retrieved 2021-02-14 – via www.worldcat.org.
  11. ↑ "Collection: Thaddeus Holownia". collections.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca. Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax. Retrieved 2021-02-14.
  12. ↑ "Members since 1880". Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  13. ↑ Order of New Brunswick
  14. ↑ Royal Society of Canada

Bibliography

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