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New exhibit pays homage to elusive surrealist

UBC Curatorial Studies master’s student Eva Tweedie discovered the remarkable work of little-known B.C. artist Dalla Husband by chance.
Dalla Husband
On display: Dalla Husband’s Three Horses in a Landscape, 1939, engraving on paper.

UBC Curatorial Studies master’s student Eva Tweedie discovered the remarkable work of little-known B.C. artist Dalla Husband by chance.

She had typed in the search term “surrealism” on the Artefacts Canada website, which contains a database of millions of art objects on display in museums across the country, when Husband’s name came up.

For her thesis project, Tweedie had selected the option of curating an exhibition, so she was searching for a compelling subject. Her larger area of research is French surrealism between the two world wars, so she was searching for surrealistic artworks in collections in Canada.

“She was a new face to me. Focusing on a Canadian national was a new take and really fascinating,” said Tweedie.

Then she Googled Husband, who was born in Winnipeg in 1899. That search only brought up a few museums and galleries with minimal information about Husband, which only piqued Tweedie’s interest.

She started art sleuthing.

As she discovered more about Husband by combing through archival sources, a fascinating portrait began to emerge of an “adventurous” and “free-spirited” woman who moved from a ranch in B.C.’s Okanagan to Paris in 1924 to pursue a career as an artist.  

Tweedie read through other artists’ memoirs of that time period in Paris, archival documents, newspaper articles, published texts, photos and other historical records to “connect the dots.”

“To find out who she was with and what she was doing.”

“At first, I was quite surprised that her practice wasn’t better known, but as my research played out, I learned that she was a very elusive figure who kept a low profile.”

She says the opportunity to be an art historical detective was one of the best parts of the project.

Now, Tweedie is about to shed some light and provide some context on the work and life of Husband in a new exhibition, Gravure Automatique: Dalla Husband at Atelier 17, which runs at the Burnaby Art Gallery from May 28 to June 21.

“I’m very excited. I think that she is a really fascinating character and because so little is known about her it will be interesting to see what the public thinks about her artwork. The quality of her work is as high as the big-name artists (of her era) who we are so familiar with.”

Husband was born in 1899 and raised in Vernon on her family’s ranch on the picturesque Lake Kalamalka. When Husband received an inheritance from her grandmother, she made a bold decision: to pursue a career as an artist in Paris.

In Paris, she became a student of acclaimed printmaker Stanley William Hayter who opened a workshop that became known as Atelier 17.

Husband’s surrealistic-influenced artwork was included in a pair of portfolios – Solidarite and Fraternite – that were sold to raise funds for children impacted by the Spanish Civil War. Other artists featured in the books included future luminaries such as Pablo Picasso and Wassily Klandinsky, the Russian abstract painter.

A press release on the exhibition notes: “Husband remains the most under-researched artist included in these portfolios as well as the only female. Many details about her life and work are still unknown, so the research for this exhibition will focus on both the methods of her practice as well as her personal life.”

Tweedie describes the artwork like this: “Husband’s work is very intimate and delicate, but I particularly enjoy the fluidity of her lines and how they reveal her process. Images and forms appear out of her long, wiry and crisp lines, and I think that her technique allows for the viewer to visualize her hand at work in creating the plate.”

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