Celebrated N.L. artist dead at 77
One of province’s most respected artists
Iconic Newfoundland artist Gerald Squires died Saturday at 77. This portrait was shot by Kenneth J. Harvey while he worked with Squires on the film “I Heard the Birch Tree Whisper in the Night,” due to be released in 2017.
It’s just a two-minute clip, but the trailer for Kenneth J. Harvey’s film, “I Heard the Birch Tree Whisper in the Night” is especially moving.
In it, celebrated Newfoundland and Labrador artist Gerald Squires talks of the moment he accepted he was seriously ill.
“I wasn’t feeling my best and I knew something was wrong,” Squires says of that spring night at home. “I looked out my window and I saw the birch trees just outside my deck, and they were shivering.”
At this point, Squires takes a long pause. When he begins speaking again, his voice wavers.
“Suddenly my mind accepted the reality of being sick...”
The scene from the film, due to be released in 2017, is par- ticularly poignant now; Squires passed away Saturday at the age of 77.
“A great and loving man, full of magic and good light,” Harvey, author as well as filmmaker, said of Squires Sunday afternoon.
A native of Change Islands, Squires moved to Ontario as a boy. He studied at Danforth Technical School and the Ontario College of Art and Design. He apprenticed as a stained glass artist and worked as an editorial artist for the Toronto Telegram.
“In my youth I was a painter,” Squires says in Harvey’s film clip. “Not one who daubed on brick or wood, but an artist who, for his age, was considered pretty good.”
Squires moved back to Newfoundland in 1961 and has long been considered one of the province’s best visual artists. He is known primarily for his dra- matic and beautiful landscapes, but has created notable pieces in lithography, stained glass and sculpture. His life-sized bronze sculpture “The Mower” was unveiled at Bidgood Park in the Goulds last year; a six-foot high statue of Shawnadithit stands in the Boyd’s Cove Interpretation Centre.
Squires had been an artist-inresidence at MUN, and was given an honourary doctorate by the university in 1998. He was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1999, presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2003, and inducted into the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council (ArtsNL) Hall of Honour in 2008.
Squires exhibited his work at his own space, the Gerald Squires Art Gallery in downtown St. John’s. It can be seen at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery and the Emma Butler Gallery, among other places.
Visual artist Clem Curtis was a friend of Squires, and says he’ll remember him in many ways. The pair had a show together, called “Both Sides,” in 2003.
“He taught me a lot about life,” Curtis tells The Telegram. “We had long conversations about art that truly made me look at the world in a different way.
“I get my work ethic from Gerry. He was always telling me, ‘When you get up in the morning, just start working, even if you have no ideas and don’t want to work. The surprises are the best.’
Squires came to Curtis’ last show at the Christina Parker Gallery, and was greeted with an embrace.
“I gave him a big hug and told him I loved him,” Curtis says. “And I did.”
Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.
Watch the trailer for “I Heard the Birch Tree Whisper in the Night” at www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1TsLgUh8Q .