Artist Information
Artist
Joseph (Joe) Francis Plaskett, RCA, OC (1918-2014)Role
ArtistDate made
1976Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST STATEMENT
(From Joseph Plaskett, "A Speaking Likeness" (Vancouver, B.C., Ronsdale Press, 1999)
“The painter lives for the moment, for the intensity of the second during which a blinding light illuminates.”
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born in New Westminster, B.C., Joseph (Joe) Francis Plaskett was an acclaimed Canadian artist, teacher and philanthropist, known for his landscapes and still lifes. He initially studied history at the University of British Columbia, and taught school for six years and dabbled in art with evening classes at the Vancouver School of Art, experimenting with Impressionism, Expressionism, Surrealism and Abstraction. In 1945, he decided to become serious about his art, studying at the Banff School of Fine Arts, where his teacher was Group of Seven artist A.Y. Jackson (1882-1974). He also joined the B. C. Society of Artists, and in 1946, having been awarded the first Emily Carr Scholarship for study in the U.S. by Group of Seven artist Lawren Harris (1885-1970), he studied at the San Francisco School of Art. In summers he studied in New York and and Provincetown, Massachusetts, studying with noted Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) who reportedly transformed Plaskett from an Abstract artist into a figurative painter. Afterwards, he taught at the Winnipeg School of Art where he was made director (1947-1949).
From 1949 to 1951, in Paris, Plaskett studied with painter Fernand Léger (1881-1955) who created a personal form of Cubism, later modified into a more figurative, populist style. He then studied at the Slade School, London (1951-1952) with a bursary awarded by the British Arts Council. He would return to Canada to teach at the Vancouver School of Art and at the University of Saskatchewan. Later, he took etching and engraving with the influential artist Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988) in Paris in 1953 and opened a studio there in 1957. By this time Plaskett was working as a full-time painter, and exhibiting and selling his work described as “romanticized impressionism” at private galleries across Canada. In the 1990s, as Plaskett started to lose his hearing, he returned to some of the abstract elements he had experimented with earlier. Plaskett was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2001, and was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. He was also a member of the Canadian Group of Painters.
In addition to his Paris home, Plaskett inherited a cottage in Suffolk, and later another in New Westminster. In 2000, he moved permanently to Suffolk, England, and in 2004, he founded the Joseph Plaskett Foundation (from the sale of his Paris home) which awards scholarships to Canadian artists. The first $25,000 award was given to Victoria painter Mark Neufeld in 2004, and Plaskett made the presentation at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver. He died in Suffolk at the age of 96.
