Name/Title
Front Steps Union Club, Blue Coat GirlEntry/Object ID
2014.08.53Description
Print
This blue-highlighted image depicts the front steps and façade of the Union Club on Gordon Street at Humboldt, with the figure of a girl in a blue coat at the foot of the stairs. The famed Empress Hotel is shown in the background. Founded in 1879, The Union Club of British Columbia is a landmark institution in the heart of downtown Victoria., B.C., considered the foremost business, social and cultural club in the city. This building is the third clubhouse venue.Artwork Details
Medium
Hand-coloured print on paperSubject Place
Region
Pacific NorthwestContinent
North AmericaContext
This Union Club building was recognized as nationally significant in 1995 by the joint federal, provincial and territorial administered registry, Canada’s Historic Places. And in 2017, The Union Club of British Columbia was declared a National Historic Site by the Government of Canada. The Union Club, completed in 1913, earned the prestigious status for its important early history and outstanding architecture of Beaux-Arts Italian Renaissance Revival Style.
Designed by noted San Francisco architect Loring P. Rixford (1870-1946), plans for the building were drawn up with the help of prominent Victoria architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury (1867-1935). Of note, in addition to the building's elegant design, is it's juxtaposition with The Empress Hotel (1908), a nationally significant Château-style hotel, built for the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Belmont Building (1912), significant for its early use of concrete frame construction and as a gatepost to Victoria's commercial core. Together these buildings form a backdrop of historic places in the northeast corner of the Inner Harbour, and mark the entrance to Victoria's Old Town District.
In 2017, an extensive $4 million five-year building renovation project was completed, including exterior restoration. The restoration of the exterior terracotta was documented and the photographs now form part of the Club's collection. See 2018.06.01 - 2018.06.15.Made/Created
Artist Information
Artist
Robert Edward Amos, RCA. UCBC Member ArtistRole
ArtistDate made
n.d.Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born in Belleville, Ontario, Robert Edward Amos is one of Victoria, B.C.'s most public artists and writers, although perhaps best known as a painter. With a fine art degree from Toronto's York University, he moved west first to Vancouver, and then arrived in Victoria in 1975, working at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria for five years, followed by a year (1980-81) of travel in Japan, Thailand and Malaysia with future wife and artist Sarah Amos. He has become one of the city’s best known artists, specializing in paintings of homes and gardens. He paints in watercolour and acrylic.
Amos wrote about art and artists in his Times Colonist newspaper column for 32 years and has produced numerous CBC Radio reports and books on Victoria’s artists and the art scene, such as "Harold Mortimer Lamb: The Art Lover" (2010). He is the official biographer of artist Edward J. Hughes (1919-2007), and has completed three books on Hughes - "EJ Hughes Paints Vancouver Island" (2018), "EJ Hughes Paints British Columbia (2019)" and The E.J. Hughes Book of Boats" (2021). He has also been artist in residence at The Empress Hotel and the Oak Bay Beach Hotel, and part of the "Painters at Painter’s Lodge" event in Campbell River, B.C. for some 20 years. His paintings are held by the City of Victoria, the Art Gallery and the University of Victoria, as well as in numerous private collections.Edition
Part of a series, edition name and size unknown.Inscription/Signature/Marks
Type
SignatureLocation
Signed lower right: AmosDimensions
Dimension Description
SupportHeight
36.5 cmWidth
30.5 cmRelationships
Related Entries
Notes
By Robert Amos:
2001.01.53 Union Club of B.C.
2014.08.53 Front Steps Union Club, Blue Coat Girl
2018.08.02 Front Steps Union Club, Red Coat Girl
2019.06.03 The [McGregor] Bar at the Union Club
