TRIBUTE TO JUNE SELZNICK DRUTZ
June Selznick was born on Valentines Day, February 14, 1920 in Toronto.
Her parents immigrated to Canada via New York City, from Russia, and she
was the youngest of ten children. June’s home where she grew up was on
Bellwoods Avenue, near Bathurst and Queen St. W. June married her
beloved husband “Danny” on July 27, 1939 and together they raised two
daughters, Nora and Dinah Drutz.
June’s first art teacher was Doris McCarthy, whom she met as a teen when
she won a scholarship to take art lessons at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She
attended the Ontario College of Art years later when she was 41 and she
graduated with honours in 1965. As a student she was awarded the
G.A.Reid Memorial Award, the Dorothy L.Stevens Scholarship, the
Women’s Art Institute Scholarship, and the Medal of France for Painting.
During the summers she taught art to the women at the reformatory to earn
the money for her tuition. Her work includes many prints often very dark
and brooding in nature, which were done just after this time.
June Selznick Drutz was a painter and a printmaker, and an excellent
draftswoman. She was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy, of the
Ontario Society of Artists, and a Life Member of the Canadian Society of
Painters in Watercolour. She received numerous awards during her life:
twice she was awarded the A.J.Casson Medal of the CSPWC, and she
received its predecessor, the CSPWC Honour Award, four times.
June has had many solo exhibitions throughout her career, most recently in
2000 when a retrospective of her work was held at Circle Arts Gallery in
Tobermory, Ontario; in 2005 at the Art Gallery of Mississauga; and also in
2005 at the Bainton Gallery in Blyth, Ontario. Her work has been exhibited
in group shows at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada
in Ottawa, and internationally in Mexico, the United States, England and
Scotland. The group shows she has been part of in Canada are far too
numerous to mention, but as an indication, June had her paintings chosen for
at least 19 Open Juried Exhibitions of the CSPWC.
She has left a large body of work and Canadian painters will remember her
unique style and colour sense for many years to come. There are many
prints, watercolours, and large canvases done with pigment in medium.
There are a variety of egg tempera paintings, drawings and studies, all of
which shine with June’s own particular rare and beautiful style.
June developed three major series in her lifetime. These can be loosely
described as the “Maidens” series, the “Walls” series and the “Interiors”
series. She created the “Interiors” series last.
Her memories of the immigrant homes crammed with unique furniture,
chairs with compartments in the arms for holding the liquor bottles, full of
many colourful fabrics, have influenced her large body of what she referred
to as the “Interior series”. These are expressed both in watercolours and
prints.
June dedicated many hours to the CSPWC and often volunteered her time
helping with the administration of this important organization. June was a
member of the jury for the Annual Open Juried Exhibition, and other juries
when called upon. She attended every AGM until her failing health
prevented it. June took a keen interest in all the issues, understanding the
necessity for slides, and later digital imaging for submission for membership
and exhibitions. While comprehending the need for new technology, she
regretted the jury’s loss of actually experiencing the real painting, receiving
the full impact of the size, and savouring the beautiful happenings of the
watercolour, which are often missing in the slide and digital reproductions.
June believed in the CSPWC and its goal of focusing on watercolour
painting, to be viewed standing alone, not amidst works on canvas of oil and
other media. She felt that what defined watercolour painting is the use of
traditional watercolour and gouache paints that are soluble in water, even
after drying, (unlike acrylic paint). She felt that graphite, pastel and inks had
always been permitted if the painting was predominantly watercolour, and
most importantly, if they were well integrated so that it was a good painting.
June was a liberal thinker.
June was not only a great artist but also an exceptional teacher. She was a
testimony to the inaccuracy of the well-known statement that “those who
can’t do, teach ….” She taught at the Toronto School of Art in the seventies,
and then at the Ontario College of Art for nearly two decades. Neville
Clarke, Ed Shawcross, Martha West Gayford, Robin Hesse, Barbara
Sunderland, Eleanor Besen, Irene Kott were some of her best students. They
made art their life’s work, and also became members of the CSPWC.
Neville Clarke in relating his memories of what a fantastic teacher June was
remembers how she pointed out the successful parts of his work showing
him how poetic they were. June was full of encouragement, and as Barbara
Sunderland recounted she was sympathetic to the student’s struggles. Ed
Shawcross remembers June saying, “ The painting will talk to you. Set it
down in a place that you will come across and be surprised by it. The
painting will speak to you and tell you what it needs and then you can act
accordingly.”
Everyone who was a student at OCA during these years will recall that many
times there would be easily 30 students sprawled at her feet, drinking in
every word, while June held up books of wondrous artists, new to many of
these fledglings. There were books on Pascin, Stanley Spenser, George
Grosz, De Segonzac.
June would show how the artist used an overlap here to bring the forehead
forward, a drift there to move the shoulder back in space, how they painted
the air. All this knowledge would be interspersed with tales of many mistress
all living together, or of how Stanley Spenser coped with a small working
space, by painting to completion one part of his canvas and then rolling that
up and continuing on the next part he was able to unroll, somehow
maintaining the full vision in his head.
With all this in mind, I would like to plant the idea that a book should be
written perpetuating the memory of June Selznick Drutz. This should
include many reproductions of her work, inspiring and educating the artists
of the future
The work of June Selznick Drutz was wonderful to see and enjoy, and to use
her own words, she would “knock your socks off “ time after time…June
was an inspiration to everyone, both in life and in art. How privileged we all
are to have known this strong but gentle, kind, sensitive and beautiful artist,
who made the world a better place to live in. Her paintings, prints and
drawings will continue to enrich the lives of generations to come.
Tribute written by: Martha Gayford
