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Item Name: Painting
Title: Estuary #434
Maker: Wynona Mulcaster
Year: 1986
Country: Canadian
Materials: acrylic on paper
Measurements: in frame: 55.8 cm x 76.2 cm
ID Number: PC87.3
Legal Status: PERMANENT COLLECTION


Extended Label Info: Whether painting the landscape or the horses she loved, Mulcaster used the techniques of abstraction to convey the essence of her subject. As critic Robert Enright put it, Mulcaster’s artwork gives us the “sensation of experiencing the landscape without being in it.” (Enright, 1984) In this small study of a prairie valley, Mulcaster’s brushstrokes expressively sketch in the rocks and reeds of the marsh. The dry grasses of the foreground are lightly painted, contrasting the deeper colours of the marsh which darken toward to the horizon and lead our eye into the deep space of the prairie scene. The sky overhead is layered in heavily, giving the sense of an overcast day where it might snow. The overall feeling is one of a cold day in late spring. Wynona Mulcaster (1915-2016) Born in Prince Albert, she studied with painter Ernest Lindner. In the late 1930s, Mulcaster helped establish what would later become the Emma Lake Artist's Workshops, and she attended these from 1937 until 1993. In 1942 she earned a BA in Art and in English from the Universtiy of Saskatchewan.She taught children in Prince Albert (1937 – 1943) , adults at the Saskatchewan Teachers' College in Saskatoon and later became the Director of Art Education at the College (1945 to 1948). As Associate Professor in the Department of Visual Art at the University of Saskatchewan (1964 – 1977) she taught many more Saskatchewan artists, including Allen Sapp. She earned a Master of Fine Arts at the age of 61, from the Institute Allende, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (1976). Mulcaster founded the Saskatoon Pony Club in 1945, and volunteered to teach riding most days until 1973. For this work, Mulcaster was inducted into the Saskatoon Sports Hall of Fame in 1994. Her art work has been exhibited widely across Canada and can be found in many private and public collections.