Ron Stonier

Born: 1933 Victoria, BC

Died: 2001, North Vancouver, BC

Ron Stonier graduated with Honours in Painting from the Vancouver School of Art in 1957. His painting teachers included Jack Shadbolt, Don Jarvis, Peter Aspell, Gordon Smith and Bruce Boyd. Other local artists whom he found influential were Bruno Bobak, Molly Lamb Bobak and B.C. Binning. While in the second year, he began teaching painting and drawing at the West Vancouver Sketch Club (now the North Shore Artists Guild) and night school classes at VSA. After graduation, he spent a year on a Leon and Thea Koerner travel study scholarship, part of that time in New York City.

From 1958 – 1962 Stonier worked for CBC Television in Vancouver, as a properties master for the design department under the direction of Phil Keatley. One of the shows for which he obtained props was “Cariboo Country,” where he met Chief Dan George who acted in the series. He also met Bill Reid, who was a broadcaster for CBC Radio until 1958.

In 1962 Stonier left CBC and became a painting instructor at VSA. Stonier, Geoff Rees and Dave Mayrs started the Tempus Gallery in Vancouver to showcase art by instructors and students. They assisted Paul C. Wong in starting his gallery, the Bau-Xi, in 1965. Stonier’s one-man show opened at the Bau-Xi in October of 1965.

In addition to instruction, Stonier helped develop programs at VSA under the principal, Fred Amess. Stonier and other instructors initiated the Foundation Program for first-year students and continues as a core program to the present. He worked for VSA during its transition to becoming Emily Carr College of Art in 1978, and then resigned his position at ECCA in 1979 to pursue his painting. Aside from teaching short-term workshops and contract instruction at ECCA (now Emily Carr University of Art & Design) and the Burnaby Arts Centre (now Shadbolt Centre for the Arts), he concentrated on his art until his death in 2001.

Exhibitions

1960 Vancouver Art Gallery, 29th Annual Exhibition (“Afro’s Ghost,” “Studio IV”)

1961 Vancouver Art Gallery, 30th Annual Exhibition (“Kind of Blue”)

1962 Vancouver Art Gallery, 31st Annual Exhibition (“Vegetable Man,” “Holy Man”)

1963 National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 5th Biennial Exhibition of Canadian Painting (“Holy Man”)

1963 Royal Canadian Academy, Toronto (“Jango”)

1963/4 Vancouver Art Gallery, 32nd Annual Exhibition (“Breaking Point”

1964 Vancouver Art Gallery, New Talent BC (circulating exhibition) (“Pud,” “Square Square”)

1965 Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver (solo show)

1965 Burnaby Circulating Gallery (“Painting #009,” “Painting #0011”)

1965-75 UBC Fine Arts Gallery, instructors’ exhibitions; Helen Pitt Gallery, Vancouver School of Art staff exhibitions; Bumbershoot Festival, Seattle, WA.

1969 Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver, Three Person Show (Pierre Coupey, Gregg Simpson, Ron Stonier)

1976 Vancouver Art Gallery, Current Pursuits (“Couple” series #4, 7, 8 and 9)

1977 Vancouver Art Gallery, From This Point of View, (“BC Landscape Series:” Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer)

1983 Emily Carr College of Art & Design, Vancouver School of Art: The Growth Years, 1939 to 1965 (“Pud”)

1995 Burnaby Art Gallery, Artists and Community: In Celebration (Untitled)

Posthumous

2004 Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver, Ways and Means (four “Couple” series paintings)

2010 Trench Gallery, Ouroboros, solo exhibition

2011 Trench Gallery, Monomania, group show

2010-12 Trench Gallery, included in group shows

2012 Trench Gallery, 1964, solo exhibition

2012 Vancouver Art Gallery, Lights Out! Canadian Painting from the 1960s, (“Holy Man”)

2017 Gordon Smith Gallery, North Vancouver, [ab-strak-shuhn] (Untitled C; Untitled E; c. 1963)

2019 West Vancouver Art Museum, solo retrospective, ‘A Concept of Time’

2019 McGill Library, Burnaby, Painted Paper, acrylics on paper

Painting Series

Stonier’s early works were oil on canvas or canvas board. In the 1960s he worked mainly in oil on composition board, or oil wash on paper, later mounted on board. One such series is titled “Cardboard.” In the late 1960s a visit to Vancouver by the Mexican artist, David Alfaro Siqueiros, prompted Stonier’s interest in using the early versions of acrylic paint. Subsequent to this he worked almost exclusively in acrylics, brushed or sprayed on stretched canvas, or Clearprint 100% cotton drafting paper. He also did drawings in black ink on onionskin paper.

Distinct series include “Cardboard,” “Couples,” “Targets,” and “BC Landscape.” After he retired from teaching, he did a large number of paintings with “patches” of colour in a painterly style. From 1989 until his death in 2001, he worked entirely in acrylics on Clearprint paper in a 24”x32” format. In total, there are close to 300 paintings on canvas or board and 300 on paper.

Collections:

Holy Man, Vancouver Art Gallery in 2002

Untitled C & Untitled E, Artists for Kids Program, North Vancouver, 2017

Untitled, 1964, White Pear, 1961, Painting #0029, 1965 & Untitled c. 1970, West Vancouver Art Museum, 2019

Works are also in private collections.