Name/Title
Arbutus PatternsEntry/Object ID
2001.01.80Description
Painting
This Modernist landscape depicts sunlit blue-green hills and sky viewed through a dark and shadowed forest of arbutus trees. The peeling reddish-brown bark strips of the foreground trees form a repetitive and flowing curvilinear pattern, almost like moving wallpaper, echoed in part in the forest floor. The location is Galiano Island where the artist lived for a number of years.Type of Painting
EaselArtwork Details
Medium
Oil on canvasSubject Place
Region
Pacific NorthwestContinent
North AmericaContext
Galiano Island is one of the Southern Gulf Islands located between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland of B.C. Located on the west side of the Strait of Georgia, the island is bordered by Mayne Island, Salt Spring Island and Valdes Island. Galiano Island takes its name from the Spanish explorer Dionisio Alcalá Galiano (1760-1805), who explored the area in 1792.
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Canada's only broad-leafed evergreen tree, the arbutus species native to the Pacific Northwest is Arbutus menziesii (Pacific madrone), important to a variety of First Nations people of B.C. in their myths and also for the creation of various medicines. The bark is also very rich in a substance used for tanning hides. Arbutus wood is hard and beautifully grained, making it suitable for woodworking and carving.
Arbutus is found from southwestern B.C. to northern Mexico on a narrow band along the coast, most often within 8 km of the Pacific Ocean. Frequently, it thrives on exposed rocky bluffs overlooking the water. They are tough, sun-loving trees that weather summer drought conditions well and can grow up to 30 m high. They are striking trees and the bark is thin, smooth, and reddish-brown, peeling in thin strips to expose younger, smooth, greenish to cinnamon-red bark underneath. In addition to Arbutus, the most common trees found on the Gulf Islands are Douglas fir, Western red cedar, Grand fir, Red alder and Big leaf maple.Made/Created
Artist Information
Artist
Gillian Mary (Gill) Allen (1918-1999)Role
PainterDate made
1993Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Gill Allen was a Canadian artist and also author whose early life was spent in Alberta, and her later life on Galiano Island. She taught in a Canadian army school in Sicily, and later in Richmond, B.C. Allen moved to the Island full-time in 1973 and, with her husband, later operated the successful Madrona Lodge resort, assumed to have been named for the Spanish word for the Arbutus tree (Pacific madrone).
As reported in "The Gulf Islands Driftwood" community newspaper, she was active in her community in many ways, writing her tale "The Magic Pin" for pre-teens, participating in and supporting a variety of local activities and events such as teaching art and craft classes in her studio, and participating in the Shows/Sales of the Artists' Guild of Galiano. Allen was a founding member of the North Galiano Community Association in the 1980s, serving on the board and was a member of The Gulf Islands Branch of the B.C. Historical Association. She celebrated her family in portraits, and her island and its natural splendors in her paintings mostly done in oil, especially seascapes and trees. She was reported to have enjoyed experimenting with less conventional landscape work of her time doing forest scenes in various styles, such as that of the celebrated Emily Carr (1871-1945). She is buried in Galiano Cemetery.Inscription/Signature/Marks
Type
Signature, InscriptionLocation
Lower left: GATranscription
Verso canvas:
Gill Allen
Galiano Island
The secret dark comfort of the forest
When vistas of Sunlit hills are visible
"Hope" III CHRISTINE PEARSONDimensions
Dimension Description
Visible imageHeight
38.1 cmWidth
27.9 cmAcquisition
Acquisition Method
GiftNotes
Legacy collection
Donated by artist
Plaque: Arbutus Patterns by Gill Allen oil 93Relationships
Related Entries
Notes
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By Harry Upperton Knight
2014.08.05 Broom and Arbutus
