Arthur Fortescue McKay

(1926-2000)

Located on Regina Five wall, above Golden Prairie Confections (Dr. William Riddell Centre, viewable from 1st and 2nd floors)

 

Impenetrable Image, 1963
Oil enamel on board
48” x 48”
University of Regina President’s Art Collection; pc.2003.02

Arthur (Art) McKay was a professor for thirty-five years at the School of Art, Regina Campus (now the University of Regina) within the Fine Art Department. He also helped initiate the Emma Lake artist workshops, where prestigious artists came to a retreat in Saskatchewan to build, bond and share in artistic practice. He was one of the renowned Regina Five, who were responsible for bringing modern, Abstract Expressionism to a then isolated prairie city and province. McKay and his colleague Kenneth Lochhead attained international recognition for their inclusion in Clement Greenberg’s Post Painterly Abstraction exhibition in Los Angeles in 1964. An eminent art critic, Greenberg held the Regina Five in high regard, stating Saskatchewan as “New York’s only competitor”[1]. Impenetrable Image is a key example of the type of work McKay produced during that time.

Art McKay is known for his Abstract Expressionist paintings. Common themes within his work include philosophies related to the human psyche, Zen Buddhism, and a strong connection to nature and the natural world. McKay utilized a unique method while creating his works. They appear to have a thick, impasto texture, but in reality they are perfectly smooth. This illusionary depth of the surface gives McKay’s paintings their signature style.

[1] David Howard, “Circling the Abyss: Art McKay and the Modernist Saga,” in Arthur McKay: A Critical Retrospective (Regina: MacKenzie Art Gallery, 1997), 14.