Wildlife artist overcame loss of arm
Clarence Tillenius suffered an artist’s greatest loss — the amputation of his painting arm in an accident — but still went on to become the dean of Canadian wildlife painters.
Tillenius, who was the creator of dioramas at museums across Canada, died on Jan. 22. He was 98.
Eight of his works are in the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. He also has works on display at the Manitoba Museum and has a permanent exhibit at the Pavilion Gallery in Winnipeg. The Royal Alberta Museum’s mountain goat diorama was completed by Tillenius in 1974.
“He was a very fascinating person — I liked his art and what he did,” art collector John Crabb said this week. “He was outstanding in the type of work he did. His love of animals and nature shows in his work.”
Peter Heymans, the gallery’s curator, called Tillenius “an explorer and a piece of Canada.”
“He lived the Canadian national anthem, our true north strong and free. … He captured Canada in its wilderness in the wild.”
Claudette Leclerc, chief executive officer of the Manitoba Museum, said generations of museum patrons will continue to view Tillenius’s dioramas there.
“Manitobans ask all the time what’s new here, but they expect to see the renowned wildlife dioramas,” Leclerc said. “We may move them, but we will never remove them.”
Tillenius was born in Sandridge, Man., in 1913, and grew up on a farm. From an early age, he painted and sketched the wildlife around him. His artistic skill grew to the point where he was able to sell a work for the cover of Country Guide magazine in 1934.
But then, while working as a railway construction worker during the day and painting at night, he lost his right arm in a construction accident. He thought his painting career was over, but a nurse bought him a set of coloured pencils, and told him to train his left arm.
It wasn’t long until he created and sold another artwork for a cover.
In the 1960s, Tillenius began painting dioramas in museums, including the one showing a bison hunt at the Manitoba Museum which, to create, he hid under a blind to see what the animals look like when they are stampeding.
Tillenius received the Order of Manitoba in 2003 and the Order of Canada in 2005.
His dioramas in the Canadian Museum of Nature were dedicated as national treasures by the federal government in 2007.