Artist Fred Ross Honoured with Order of New Brunswick
One Tuesday, June 2nd, Fred Ross was given the Order of New Brunswick. Fred Ross’ "magnificent and mammoth new painting" ‘The Lady in Black’, recently purchased from Galerie Walter Klinkhoff by the Beaverbrook Gallery in Fredericton was formally unveiled at a gala held at the Saint John Convention Center attended by Lieutenant Governor Herménégilde Chiasson, the Honorable Shawn Graham, Premier of New Brunswick, Mr. Allison McCain, Chairman of the Beaverbrook Gallery Board of Governors and 700 guests.
Tom Smart, executive director, CEO and president of the McMichael Canadian Art Foundation in Kleinburg, Ontario, contributed a marvelously written essay published in the Salon section of the Saint John’s ‘Telegraph Journal’ on Saturday, May 30, under the title "Fred Ross, taste and beauty for all time". Interested readers are encouraged to look at the entire Salon supplement to that day’s paper, a 12-page section almost entirely dedicated to Fred Ross and various aspects of his career.
Tom Smart’s closing paragraph reads as follows: "What is his place? Fred is the curious outsider and it is no wonder that when I conjure images of him I see him sitting on Rivera’s scaffold, communing with Bronzino, learning how to draw from Miller Brittain, hearing the forceful debates about the power of art to move societies, or tenderly asking a young dancer to sit quietly before his easel. His accomplishment is showing the capacity of figurative art to express the immensity of a human life. The distillation of the grand, timeless themes of humanity can be discerned in his depictions of the streets and people of his beloved Saint John." ( Mr. Smart is the author of a book published in 1993, "The Art of Fred Ross: A Timeless Humanism".)
Related Links
Fred Ross Artist Page with available works, biography and news
Read Kate Wallace's article about Fred Ross, A life where art feels so much like breathing, from the Saint John Telegraph Journal
Read interview with Victor and Nicole Levy, from the Saint John Telegraph Journal
View the Contemporary Canadian Artists Index
