James Gordaneer

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2010-

James Gordaneer painted in oils, acrylics, and watercolours from the 1950s until his death on March 9, 2016. One of Vancouver Island’s most prolific painters and a prominent art instructor to hundreds in Victoria, B.C., Gordaneer has a huge following of former students and collectors. Born in Toronto in 1933, Gordaneer was the youngest son in a working-class family. He quit high school after Grade 8 to work at the local grocery store alongside his older brothers, Harry and John Gordaneer. While he’d always doodled on anything he could, from playground dust to a pad of paper on the family table, Gordaneer's parents were shocked when at age 19, he decided to take his talent for painting and drawing to art school — something that was a world away from their East-End Toronto experience. Gordaneer found himself at the Doon Summer School of Fine Arts at the historic Homer Watson house in Doon, Ontario. It was a prestigious art school, staffed by members of the Group of Seven and their contemporaries. Gordaneer almost left the same day he arrived, feeling the weight of impostor syndrome. Who was he to be part of such an elite group? But when he went for a walk and crossed over a bridge near the school, he was struck by the beauty of the river water running under it. Back at the residence, he was welcomed by the other art students, and never looked back. Learning from renowned artists like the Group of Seven’s Frederick Varley and J.E.H Macdonald, and recognized for his talent, he became an instructor at Doon the following year, teaching alongside renowned artists like Carl Schaefer, Yvonne Housser, Dorothy Stevens, and Jack Bechtel. Over six decades, Gordaneer was involved with many artist societies and groups, including the Canadian Group of Painters, the Chapman Group of Artists, the Ontario Society of Artists, the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour.