Barski Constructing New Horizons: the art of Winnipeg modernist Tony Tascona Justin Barski* University of Victoria jbarski88@gmail.com Abstract There is a popular perception that Canadian art is largely re- actionary and without real innovation, however the Winnipeg- based artist Tony Tascona is a demonstrable example of a Cana- dian artist as primary innovator. Because of his technical train- ing in the aerospace industry, Tascona was able to introduce a whole body of knowledge unfamiliar to the fine art world. Artis- tic experimentation with non-traditional industrial materials had been explored for several decades prior to the appearance of his mature work, however Tascona possessed an intimate knowledge and sensitivity to his materials that lead to a style uniquely ap- propriate to his content; his content being the materials them- selves and the forms of the mechanised world. Through archival research at the University of Manitoba and an interview with the artist’s nephew, this paper explores Tascona’s artistic genealogy, working milieu and unique situation within modern art history. Its ultimate purpose is to make a case for why his work deserves critical attention and why he should be remembered as a great artist with a contribution unique not just to Canada, but to the world. *I am grateful to the Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award for offseting tuition costs and therefore allowing me the opportunity to travel to Winnipeg to do research. I would like to thank Dr. Allan Antliff for assisting me with the JCURA ap- plication process and for lending valuable insight into how I may expand my research. My thanks extend to Dr. Catherine Harding for helping me to develop and focus my research topic. Finally I would like to acknowledge Perry Scaletta and thank him for taking time to answer my questions about his uncle, Tony Tascona and for showing me some of his works. 216 mailto:jbarski88@gmail.com The Arbutus Review • Fall 2014 • Vol. 5, No. 1 Keywords: Tony Tascona; constructivism; Clement Greenberg; mod- ernism; Winnipeg; Manitoba School of Art; Richard Serra; Rodchenko; Canadian modern art I. Introduction Tony Tascona’s work and artistic achievements exist in an am-biguous sphere in art history. While he received recognitionduring his lifetime, culminating in his 1996 appointment to the Order of Canada, his name and work remain relatively obscure out- side of Winnipeg and virtually unknown outside of Canada. The 2010 survey of Canadian art The Visual Arts in Canada: The Twentieth Cen- tury, despite being nearly five hundred pages in length, and mention- ing other prairie artists like the Regina Five, fails to mention Tascona even once (Whitelaw, Foss, & Paikowsky, 2010). Similarly, the third edition of Dennis Reid’s A Concise History of Canadian Painting does not feature a single image of Tascona’s art and contains sparse and brief passages which mention only the artist’s essential biographical and stylistic information (Reid, 2012). Although celebrated within Winnipeg, Tascona’s death in 2006 left his work at even greater risk of falling into obscurity. The only monograph to ever be published on the artist was sponsored by the Manitoba Department of Cultural Affairs and Historical Resources in 1982 as part of an effort to stoke “an increased awareness of Manitoba art and artists” (Kostyra, 1982, Foreword). Published as Manitoba Art Monographs, the book covers a half-dozen Manitoban artists including Tascona but inherently lim- ited by circumstance, misses the last twenty-four years of his life and art production. This paper will provide an overview of Tascona’s influences, career arc and working method with an aim to demon- strate that his work is both exceptionally well positioned and unique within the canon of art history and merits wider recognition. Al- though he was dismissed by the prominent art critic Clement Green- berg, Tascona’s work evolved to undermine Greenberg’s narrow ex- pectations of abstract art and ultimately introduced a new language the art world had never seen before or since. 217 Barski II. Biography Antonio ‘Tony’ Tascona was born March 16, 1926 in the predomi- nantly francophone town of St Boniface before it was incorporated into Winnipeg in 1971. The fifteenth of sixteen children, but one of only ten who survived into childhood, Tascona’s was a modest up- bringing in the typical narrative of many Canadian immigrant fam- ilies in the early 20th century (Hughes, 1982, p. 251). His father’s untimely death forced young Tascona to leave school at age fifteen and earn an unlawful living as a truck driver (Hughes, 1982, p. 251). His mother later died when he was seventeen and he would even- tually be conscripted at age eighteen into the Canadian Army but would never be deployed overseas (Hughes, 1982, p. 251). 1. Academic training and early influences Tascona began his fine arts training in 1946 after leaving the army and enrolling at the Winnipeg School of Art through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (Enright, 1984, p. 31). Through his instructor Joe Plaskett, he became familiar with Hans Hoffman’s theories on abstraction, in an otherwise traditionally focused environment (Pat- ten, 2001, p. 18). After receiving his diploma, Tascona continued his education at the University of Manitoba School of Art and was ex- posed to other modernist trends like Vorticism, which emphasised a non-figurative aesthetic inspired by industry (Patten, 2001, p. 19). Tascona’s work would later be deemed “reminiscent of the old vorti- cists” by a local Winnipeg art critic, a label Tascona categorically de- nied (Tascona, n.d.a). In 1953 a local multi-media artist named Bjorn Sather taught him electroplating and shortly after Tascona got a job with Trans-Canada Airlines as a technician (Enright, 1984, p. 31). It was there that his interest in the materiality of aircraft led to a fascination with the properties of aluminum, high grade paints, lac- quers and enamels (Enright, 1984, p. 32). Tascona also spent time at his brother’s auto body garage where he developed an enthusiasm for the use of car paint, even borrowing paint chips and supplies for use in his studio (P. Scaletta, personal communication, September 13, 218 The Arbutus Review • Fall 2014 • Vol. 5, No. 1 2013). With his 1961 move to Montreal Tascona was exposed to sig- nificant contemporary art trends in Canada. He developed a strong interest in the works of Les plasticiens artists like Molinari, Tousig- nant and Comtois for what he called their “direct, more mathematical, more geometric approach” (Enright, 1984, p. 32). Such a precise ap- proach was integral to another key influence for Tascona: Construc- tivism. The core principle of both the constructivist and plasticiens movements was a preoccupation with evincing the inherent quali- ties of their chosen materials, which in the plasticiens’ case involved demonstrating paint on canvas through solid flat blocks of colour and simple geometric shapes and lines. Such principles of material aware- ness would have a far greater impact on Tascona’s artistic sensibilities than any specific formalism. However, before he was able to realize the potential, his vocational training and these new influences had to- wards his art production, Tascona would be forced to endure a critical setback. 2. Setback and isolation Clement Greenberg was an enormously influential New York based art critic who helped defend and popularize abstract painting in North America. His opinions shaped the careers of many artists in terms of their formal sensibilities and popular success. When asked in 1962 by Canadian Art to do a survey of painting and sculpture in the prairies, he recognized the precarious position of this region in receiving crit- ical attention. In drawing geographical comparisons to the continen- tal US, Greenberg (1993) saw the prairies as analogous to the Mid- west’s own cultural isolation between New York and San Francisco. As a result, he referred to the prairies as being at risk of “double ob- scurity” (p. 154). Already in Regina to lead the Emma Lake work- shop, he credited the Regina Five as being “‘big attack’” artists who contributed to a revaluation of his preconceptions that the prairies would be inherently held hostage by a provincial condition (Green- berg, 1993, p. 156). After evaluating the state of art in Regina, Saska- toon, Edmonton, and Calgary, Greenberg arrived to Winnipeg where 219 Barski he was surprised to see that Winnipeg shared equally the artistic ten- dencies as well as the “stagnation” derived from the art departments of Midwestern universities (Greenberg, 1993, 163). He referred to Tony Tascona as a “‘big attack’” artist only skeptically, finding his work to be quaint by the standards of the avant-garde (Greenberg, 1993, p. 164). Greenberg expresses his esoteric brand of eloquent condescen- sion in essentially labelling Tascona as an artist trapped in the old fashioned artistic conventions of 1940s Chicago. Citing the presence of “Picassoid and Miró-esque” forms, Greenberg (1993) labelled Tas- cona’s work as being reminiscent of a late 1940s “Chicago” style which gave it “a rather old-fashioned and provincial look” (p.164). It is un- clear which paintings Greenberg was reviewing, but pieces like Stan- dard Bearers (Figure 1)1 were fairly typical of Tascona’s abstract ex- pressionist work at this time. Damning it further, Greenberg (1993) asserted that what really precludes Tascona’s work from his critical approval is not its quaint formalism, but “its failure to say anything, its lack of content” (p.164). Greenberg’s assessments on the nature of art and the demands of modernism are articulate and logical and his indifference to Tascona’s paintings at this time is unsurprising if not justified. In his influential 1960 essay titled “Modernist Painting” Greenberg (1993) describes the self-critical condition of modernism and the need for institutions to justify themselves through the means exclusively available to them (p. 85). The arts, in order to not be re- duced to entertainment, needed to demonstrate their own exclusive value (Greenberg, 1993, p. 86). For painting this meant an exploration of its contemplative powers elicited through the optical qualities of pigment on a flat surface (Greenberg, 1993, p. 87). Becoming increas- ingly self-referential, avant-garde painting began losing its ambitions to depict the natural world with content melting into form, with to- tally abstract art as the culmination of this direction. By the 1960s Greenberg was beginning to invest himself in a new direction in abstract art known as “Post-Painterly Abstraction.” Since the intrinsic property of painting was the flat surface, efforts at creat- 1Links to all figures are located on page 232 220 The Arbutus Review • Fall 2014 • Vol. 5, No. 1 ing depth through tonal change or brushy mannerisms belied this fundamental truth and therefore diluted this art form (Greenberg, 1993, p. 194). As its name suggests, Post-Painterly Abstraction denies these painterly influences and allows painting to exist confidently as purely optical paint on a flat surface. He endorsed American and Canadian artists who had learned from “Painterly Abstraction” but done away with tactile effects and contrasts of light and dark, giv- ing “freshness” to their work (Greenberg, 1993, p. 196). At this time in 1962, it seems clear Tascona was still relying on a more academic sensibility. His paintings, while fully competent, are fairly derivative and do not demonstrate anything new in relation to formal explo- rations of the picture plane occurring by this time. It is difficult to quantify the negative impact of Greenberg’s re- view but its effects on Tascona’s career were immediate if not ir- reparable. Although he did not wear his dissatisfaction on his sleeve or spend the rest of his career lamenting the review, Tascona still re- counted its impact in a 1984 interview with Robert Enright, recalling that at the time, he was preparing for a show at the Dorothy Cameron Gallery in Toronto and had his work already shipped. Ten days be- fore the opening of the show, Greenberg’s review was printed by Canadian Art magazine which caused the show’s immediate cancel- lation (Enright, 1984, p. 31). Tascona said of the misadventure: “It was a helluva blow to my ego, my pocketbook and to someone who was trying to establish himself in Montreal” (Enright, 1984, p. 32). It would seem that Greenberg never again encountered Tascona’s work for critical appraisal and it is difficult to say if his opinion would have drastically changed. While in Canada, Greenberg (1993) viewed one of Eli Bornstein’s geometrically focused sculptural reliefs which, although he did not like it, nonetheless found that it revealed ma- jor artistic ambition and merited recognition (p. 174). Such work has similar formal elements to Tascona’s later geometric construc- tions. Greenberg recognised the primacy and unique importance of the landscape genre to Canadian art, and while some critics have claimed tendencies towards abstract representations of the prairies in Tascona’s work, it is clear that his artistic heritage is instead drawn 221 Barski from the optimism of the sixties towards the future promises of tech- nology and industry (Coutts-Smith, 1978, p. 41). This is a key critical difference between Tascona’s mature art and Greenberg’s narrow art historical and critical expectations. The tendencies Greenberg identi- fies assume that abstract art exists in a vacuum to be enjoyed for its own sake and ignores the very real fact that art exists in and reflects the world around it. Art relays not just what is experienced in the world but how it is experienced and what is retained as a repercus- sion of that experience. This is divulged in Tascona’s later formal ge- ometry and material handling and how it adeptly relates to his world. It was not long after this event that Tascona returned to the seclu- sion of Winnipeg in 1964 because the humid atmosphere in Montreal exacerbated the breathing problems of one of his children (Hughes, 1978, p. 72). Although he does not expressly mention it, Greenberg likely found the techniques Tascona used before turning to metal constructions to be overly painterly and retrogressive. In 1957, Tascona along with other artists subject to Greenberg’s dismissal, Frank Mikuska and Bruce Head, developed a method involving the layering of printer’s ink and fixative to illustration board upon which they would add texture and remove ink; a process they called the “ink-graphic tech- nique” (Patten, 2001, p. 21). Singling out Mikuska, Greenberg (1993) wrote that he “was trapped in an eclectic, catch-all, painterly con- ventionality” (p.164). Even prior to this, Tascona was already exper- imenting with adding sand to build and enhance texture. He would then rub ink and Duco mix into this sand to achieve higher translu- cency but became dissatisfied with this direction in his art and looked towards the materials of the aircraft industry to simplify his entire ap- proach (Enright, 1984, p. 32). III. Tascona’s art and innovation The use of other media to enhance surface in painting can be notably traced to the Russian avant-garde scene, where Alexandr Rodchenko, in his competition with Kazimir Malevich, used non-traditional ma- 222 The Arbutus Review • Fall 2014 • Vol. 5, No. 1 terials to enhance the painterly qualities of his work (Dabrowski et al., 1999). Rodchenko’s wife, Varvara Stepanova, praised his work for its “intensification of painting for its own sake” (Antliff, 2007, p. 85). The principle of “art for art’s sake” was certainly a priority of Tas- cona’s which was only reinforced by his exposure to the Montreal art scene. However, the coincidental parallels between the materials Tascona used and the evolution of the avant-garde in Russia extend further. Rodchenko and his contemporaries, facing political and so- cial pressures of post-revolution Soviet Russia were eventually forced into abandoning the principles of art for contemplative purposes and joined with other artists to form “‘The First Working Group of Con- structivists’” in order to evade the egregious Communist charge of formalism (Antliff, 2007, p. 89). For Tascona, Constructivism’s ap- peal came not out of political necessity, but because it provided a well-articulated precedent for the implicitly industrial themes of his art production. It was in 1965 that Tascona was introduced to the general theo- ries of Constructivism by the British artist William Townsend while he was in Canada to jury a biennial exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada (Dillow, 1984, p. 7). Constructivism was, however, born out of a harsh socialism that repudiated all forms of fine art with- out strict didactic or utilitarian purpose as bourgeois escapism, some- thing which was incompatible with Tascona’s generally apolitical outlook (P. Scaletta, personal communication, September 13, 2013). Tascona, nonetheless, did appreciate Vladimir Tatlin’s prediction that the art of the future would be synthesised with principles of technol- ogy and construction (Dillow, 1984, p. 9). A primary spokesman for the movement, Alexei Gan, denigrated all art production as being re- actionary and narcissistic by nature (Antliff, 2007, p. 98). Tascona would have disagreed in principle but perhaps not in practice as the very use of aluminum and lacquer instead of paint and canvas already implied a self-effacement of the artist’s hand (Patten, 2001, p. 32). Dr. Ferdinand Eckhardt, the director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery wrote of Tascona in 1974 that “No doubt the artist is inspired by his long-time occupation mastering difficult technical processes, by the 223 Barski seductive elegance of modern industrial design and simple geometri- cal forms. He eliminates any romantic feeling. Symbolism seems to have disappeared. If one looks for meaning, one might find it in the subordination of the picture to the mood of the environment, even if this environment – to most people – almost a vacuum” (Patten, 2001, p. 25). By the late sixties and throughout the seventies and eight- ies, Tascona heavily invested himself in creating his “constructions” – pieces that consisted of incised metal sheets and industrial strength paints and lacquers which had a sculptural, frieze-like element to them while still possessing certain modernist formal elements meant to convey, as Tascona described, “the kind of order that is produced by a series of opposing forces or tensions, both at the level of form or shape as well as of colour… I capture the music…” (Bovey, 2001, p. 34). Tascona received his first major commission in 1963, for the Man- itoba Centennial Concert Hall (Figure 2). For this project he built two, ten by sixteen foot constructions by layering numerous sheets of shaped aluminum, then covering them in his unique painting tech- nique (Linton, 2006). These were the first of his constructions that would come to characterise a significant and unique body of work. The style of such pieces is largely the product of Tascona communi- cating their content as efficiently as possible; the content being the materials themselves. For Rodchenko and the constructivists, every material had a geometric form which could best exhibit its own qual- ities (Dabrowski et al., 1999). Working with aluminum in the aircraft industry, Tascona’s vocational intuition lead him to reference in his art the final forms of the materials he worked with, as showcased through repetitive geometric forms and smooth gradients (Figure 3). Unlike pictorial art which is to be experienced metaphorically, Tas- cona’s constructions are experienced viscerally. Scale plays an es- sential role in his constructions as their content innately references powerful machines of industry (Figure 4). While abstract literary metaphor can always be applied to such things as aircraft, primar- ily, they are experienced through their awe-inspiring presence and stored energy. 224 The Arbutus Review • Fall 2014 • Vol. 5, No. 1 Tascona’s familiarity with industrial processes and materials gave him a comfort and deeper technical understanding of his working ma- terials than the Constructivists who approached material inventive- ness out of political necessity and with a more naïve artistic intuition. One example of practical material innovation can be found in an early commission for the Fresh Water Institute at the University of Mani- toba in 1972. Tascona was confronted with an architecturally bru- talist building and sought to mediate its severe artificial nature with work that would reflect the mission carried on within. His solution was to create a series of resin discs that were four feet in diameter and one inch thick, and were coloured to capture natural light and refract it in a way that evoked themes of light, photosynthesis, plankton and aquatic life (Hughes, 1978, p. 75). To demonstrate his concept to the selection committee, Tascona cast his first full size disc and hung it outdoors on a swing set raised on stilts, twenty feet in the air. The committee was impressed and awarded him the commission, but af- terwards as Tascona began disassembling his installation, he noticed that the disc had warped from being in the day-long presence of the sun’s heat. After consulting chemists who could offer no solution, Tascona recalled a lamination technique he had used from his recent days in the aircraft industry (Hughes, 1978, p. 75). The resulting installation of vertically suspended diaphanous rounds hangs and is enjoyed to this day (Figure 5). Such innovation and working through material constraints parallels the Constructivist “laboratories” where material problems were posed and solved through experimentation (Antliff, 2007, p.99). Despite his reliance on industrial materials and processes as his avenue of expression, one should not conclude that Tascona had the same scientific detachment to his creations as the Constructivists claimed for themselves. Tascona’s genuine enthusi- asm for “art for art’s sake,” and his hybrid fine art and industrial mi- lieu, is noted by Carl Weiselberger in reviewing an exhibition at the Blue Barn Gallery in 1966. He recognises that: Tascona does not paint cold, merely decorative abstracts born from a draftsman’s geometry. On the contrary, he wishes to convey his individual feelings, to express the 225 Barski powerful dynamics, the radiation – to use his own vocab- ulary – that emanates from his industrial environment. (Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1972, p. 5) 1. Comparisons with Richard Serra To better illustrate the innovative nature of Tascona’s approach, an apt comparison can be made with the leading contemporary artist Richard Serra and his large-scale installation work. Growing up in San Francisco, Serra was exposed to the area’s industry through his father who worked at a dockyard as a pipe fitter. Serra later found himself working at a steel mill before his enrollment into art school, and in a 2001 interview with Charlie Rose, Serra (2001) fully credits his working class background for being the determinate factor in his choice of material and artistic approach (Television Interview). Such a background gave him an insight, exclusive from other artists, into the properties of steel. For Serra, the material an artist selects is an extension of himself, but in the case of the properties of steel, he says “that wasn’t knowledge that was in the art world. It was in the world of engineering and technology, but not the art world” (McShine, 2007, p. 28). The same principled approach to selecting materials and a working process is reflected in this quote from Tascona: For a number of years, I worked in the aircraft industry as a metal processing technician dealing in chemistry, physics and metallurgy. It was within this technology that I became attracted to the precise order and nature of materials as applied to moving and inert forces. This attraction and involvement compelled me to explore the manipulative possibilities of the materials I sometimes employ in my work… I would like to think of myself as an innovative assimilator, who wields precise minimal concepts into visual reality. These minimal concepts deal with linear colour vibrations as found in nature and tech- nology. Living on the prairie makes me acutely aware of the precise physical laws of nature. I react to scale, move- 226 The Arbutus Review • Fall 2014 • Vol. 5, No. 1 ment, volume, light, colour… all of the physical energies. (Hughes, 1978, p. 74) Beyond materials, both artists share a common thread in the role of their blue-collar milieu informing general themes in their body of work. When an interviewer asserted that one of Serra’s pieces had “a sort of hull-of-a-ship feeling to it, Serra admitted some works allow for a nautical reference, saying “My father worked in shipyards and I’ve built in shipyards. I’ve walked around a lot of hulls in dry dock” (McShine, 2007, p. 39) (Figure 6). Tascona as well references: the incredible shapes of jet engines… in fact, that’s where the sculptural quality came into my work. Some of those airplane shapes I came across in the aircraft industry were just thrilling and they had a very strong influence in my work. (Enright, 1984, p. 32) Because of the similarities in their sources of inspiration and artis- tic aims, Tascona’s work could largely be considered a more pictorial and metaphorical equivalent to Serra’s sculpture. Both deal with spa- tial tension while the physicality of their work is informed by their uniquely formative industrial milieus. Their work mutually compli- ments each other with different focuses and strengths. While both operate on the sheer physical presence of their works, Serra’s instal- lations are pure sculpture while Tascona’s constructions only have sculptural elements and themes. This gives Serra’s work a primacy in sheer physical spectacle as it exists in the viewer’s environment more directly and does not need to justify its reality. This should not be considered a failure on Tascona’s part as both artists are equally successful in merging their images with their media. In the case of Serra, his sculpture is the steel which exclusively comprises it. The reference to finished industrial form is secondary. For the more multi- media Tascona, the finished industrial forms of sheet metal and high grade paints are the primary concern while material showcase exists insofar as to support the credibility of the metaphor. Serra’s fame and impact is reflected in being recently chosen as the number three pick 227 Barski for world’s greatest living artist by a Vanity Fair survey of 100 influ- ential artists, curators and various academics (Stevens, 2013). While almost half of those asked did not respond, and such surveys are not necessarily an absolute authority, it nonetheless reflects Serra’s prominence in the minds of leading figures in the contemporary art world. By the 1990s and into the 2000s, Tascona began to develop health problems which hampered his ability to continue working on his large scale constructions. Like Renoir or Matisse before him, Tas- cona adapted his art production to be more conducive to his increas- ingly limited mobility and began doing highly intricate biomorphic ink drawings (Figure 7). These were described by Pierre Théberge, director of the National Gallery of Canada, as being alike the very brain electricity of the artist (Linton, 2006). Despite the optimism his work apparently holds towards technological modernism, Tascona suspected that in all likelihood it was his use of materials like lac- quers and thinners, often without a mask or any protection, which had a detrimental impact on his health and contributed to his devel- oping of spinal stenosis (Linton, 2006). Although friendly to his supporters, Tascona always remained quite cynical towards the professional art world and simply could not bring himself to part with the conventional 50% share of the gross sale price with a gallery. He instead sold many of his works on his own, even offering sincere appreciators payment options (P. Scaletta, per- sonal communication, September 13, 2013). His pessimism towards the art world is displayed in commenting on a 1958 news story about art as a speculative investment which included references to his own work; Tascona (n.d.b) wrote “Money in art? Yes for dealers, direc- tors, curators, consultants, historians, support staff and even the odd artist!” His moral support for artists extended into his philanthropic endeavours, culminating in him establishing the “Tony Tascona Bur- sary Fund” in 1997 to support students at the University of Winnipeg who have a demonstrated interest in Canadian art history and has helped both artists and art historians (University of Winnipeg, n.d.). 228 The Arbutus Review • Fall 2014 • Vol. 5, No. 1 IV. Conclusion Tony Tascona explored modernism in a way wholly unique not just in Canada, but to the world. His meaningful use of the very materi- als of modernism to create compositions that related to his contem- porary environment without relying on centuries old traditional ma- terials, gives him a primacy and insight enjoyed by no other artist. However, Tascona’s career was inherently limited by his seclusion in Winnipeg and overall refusal to deal with art dealers and other representatives. While Richard Serra enjoyed enormous patronage early on by the New York art dealer Leo Castelli, Tascona lamented that “they don’t allow you much scope in Canada. I have a helluva idea right now if only I had half a million dollars. But there aren’t any risk-takers out there who are going to involve themselves in sponsor- ing an artist” (Enright, 1984, p. 33). Tascona’s work can be found in prominent locations in Canada, including the National Gallery, how- ever, much of his notable output exists as public commissions or sits in a handful of large private collections in Winnipeg, outside of crit- ical discourse. Perry Scaletta, Tascona’s nephew who maintains a sizeable collection of the artist’s work, contends that there exists a general state of condescension towards Winnipeg by the rest of the country (P. Scaletta, personal communication, September 13, 2013). Such sentiment echoes Greenberg’s earlier appraisal of prairie art as being at risk of double obscurity. Had Tascona worked in a major art centre like New York, or been more willing to work with dealers or representatives, wider fame and acknowledgment would have likely been inevitable. Perhaps if he and Serra had been acquainted with each other during the late 1960s, the two artists could have begun a new school of exploration based on the informed use of industrial material. However, if art is to be understood not as self-expression, but as an index of the ambient information which informs the artist, then any regrets about circumstance present a catch twenty-two and, as Tascona himself asserted, “Artists should be accountable to their community. You need roots which give your work meaning” (Yates, 1997, p. 5). 229 Barski References Antliff, A. (2007). Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press. Bovey, P.E. (2001). Tony Tascona: Resonance and Reflections. In Tony Tascona: Resonance (pp. 31–40). Winnipeg Art Gallery. Coutts-Smith, K. (1978, November/December). Tony Tascona. Arts West, Nov.–Dec., 40–41. Dabrowski, M., Dickerman, L., & Galassi, P. (1999). Alexandr Rod- chenko. New York: Museum of Modern Art. Dillow, N.E. (1984). The dynamics of Tony Tascona: works on alu- minum, 1973 to 1984. Winnipeg Art Gallery. Enright, R. (1984, Summer). 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New York: Museum of Modern Art. Memorial University of Newfoundland. (1972). Art Tony Tascona. St. John’s, Nfld: Memorial University Art Gallery. Patten, J. (2001). Tony Tascona and the Modern Imagination. In Tony Tascona: Resonance (pp. 17–28). Winnipeg Art Gallery. Reid, D. (2012). A Concise History of Canadian Painting. Third Edition. 230 The Arbutus Review • Fall 2014 • Vol. 5, No. 1 Toronto: Oxford University Press. Serra, R. (2001, November 14). Interview by C. Rose. Charlie Rose [Television broadcast]. New York: Public Broadcasting Service. Stevens, M. (2013, December) Paint by Numbers. Vanity Fair. Re- trieved from http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/12/greatest- living-artists-poll Tascona, T. (n.d.a). Handwritten note in margin of newspaper arti- cle. The Winnipeg Gallery: Reviewed by Angelo, 1957, January 30. University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections, Win- nipeg, MB. Tascona, T. (n.d.b). Handwritten note in margin of newspaper article. Moss I Gather, Winnipeg Tribune, 1958, April 17. University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections, Winnipeg, MB. University of Winnipeg. (n.d.). Celebrating the Life & Art of Tony Tascona. Retrieved from http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/newsfla sh-060602 Whitelaw, A., Foss, B., & Paikowsky S. (Eds.). (2010). The Visual Arts in Canada: The Twentieth Century. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Yates, S. (1997, February). Mything in Action: Tony Tascona. Border Crossings, 16(1), 4–5. 231 http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/12/greatest-living-artists-poll http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/12/greatest-living-artists-poll http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/newsflash-060602 http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/newsflash-060602 Barski Figures Figure 1 Tony Tascona, Standard Bearers, 1962, oil on canvas, 81.5 × 102 cm. Available at: http://wag.ca/art/art-search/display,result/54897, Collec- tion of the Winnipeg Art Gallery Figure 2 Tony Tascona, Lobby of Manitoba Centennial Concert Hall, Tascona with mural, painted aluminium. Available at: http://0.static.wix.com/ media/a4b7337f45b75557229cf22640f263e4.wix_mp_1024, University of Manitoba Archives Figure 3 Tony Tascona, Continuum, 1982–1983, lacquer on routed aluminium, 91.4 × 243.9 cm. Available at: http://wag.ca/, Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery Figure 4 Tony Tascona, Untitled (Prop Cycle), 1973, lacquer on aluminium, 121.7 × 152.3 cm. Available at: http://wag.ca/ Collection of the Win- nipeg Art Gallery Figure 5 Tony Tascona, Suspended Resin Discs. Available at: http://www.winnip egarchitecture.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/FreshwaterInstitute_Lobby 2_C72.jpg, Winnipeg Architecture Foundation Figure 6 Richard Serra, The Matter of Time, 2005, steel Available at: https://flic.kr/p/6QPKJw, (Photograph: Tony Higsett, 2009) Figure 7 Tony Tascona, Sun Spots, 1999, ink on paper, 52 × 70 cm. Available at: http://wag.ca/, Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery 232 http://wag.ca/art/art-search/display,result/54897 http://0.static.wix.com/media/a4b7337f45b75557229cf22640f263e4.wix_mp_1024 http://0.static.wix.com/media/a4b7337f45b75557229cf22640f263e4.wix_mp_1024 http://wag.ca/ http://wag.ca/ http://www.winnipegarchitecture.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/FreshwaterInstitute_Lobby2_C72.jpg http://www.winnipegarchitecture.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/FreshwaterInstitute_Lobby2_C72.jpg http://www.winnipegarchitecture.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/FreshwaterInstitute_Lobby2_C72.jpg https://flic.kr/p/6QPKJw http://wag.ca/ Introduction Biography Academic training and early influences Setback and isolation Tascona's art and innovation Comparisons with Richard Serra Conclusion