Clarence Tillenius,
CM OM was a
Canadian artist,
environmentalist, and advocate for the protection of
wildlife and
wilderness died he was 98..
(August 31, 1913 – January 22, 2012)
Early years
Born on August 31, 1913 in
Sandridge, Manitoba to parents having Swedish and Norwegian ancestry, Tillenius grew up with six siblings on a farm in the
Manitoba Interlake region 100 km north of
Winnipeg.
His parents recognized his artistic skills when he created a portrait
of the family dog at the young age of four and he sketched, painted or
drawn every day until his death. Tillenius attended
Clematis School in 1919 and kept in correspondence with his teacher
Marion Archibald (Irwin) until her death. Tillenius attended High School in
Teulon, Manitoba but never attended
university due to the
Great Depression. Tillenius educated himself by acquiring and reading books and had over 5,000 books in his library.
Career
Tillenius worked on farms, mines, lumber camps, railroad crews, forest fire crews and construction crews in
Manitoba and
Ontario during which time he developed a greater interest in the outdoors. He built a homestead cabin in
Ontario.
Tillenius sold his first cover to the
Country Guide in 1934.
He barely escaped death in a
railway line reconstruction accident at
Hudson, Ontario
in 1936, losing his right arm at the shoulder after falling under a CNR
rock car while operating a steam shovel. During recovery at the
hospital in
Sioux Lookout,
a nurse and doctor encouraged him to learn to paint using his left
hand. This encouraged Tillenius to persevere and to redevelop his
painting skills using his left hand. He received the tutelage of a fine
artist and great friend,
Alexander J. Musgrove, who established the first drawing school in Manitoba.
The
Country Guide
published the first magazine cover done with Tillenius's left hand in
1940 and he continued to work as an illustrator and cover designer for
the magazine for 30 years. Tillenius also provided illustrations and
covers for
The Beaver for over 40 years, as well as many other magazines and newspapers.
Tillenius met weekly with artist and sculptor
Leo Mol, cartoonist
Peter Kuch and several other artists for life drawing sessions of a live model in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
During 1943 to 1945, Tillenius visited and became friends with famed painter
Carl Rungius in his
Banff studio and in
New York City. He also met painter of birds
Alan Brooks in
Vernon, British Columbia and traveled with the editor of the
Country Guide on a 2000 mile trip through the
Rockies and
British Columbia and back and forth across the plains of
Saskatchewan and
Alberta.
From 1948 to 1953, Tillenius observed a number of
wolf-hunting expeditions in
Kenora,
Winnipeg and
Sioux Lookout. Some of his wolf series were completed at this time.
Tillenius was contracted in the 1950s to create a total of 18 lifesize
dioramas of buffalo, wildlife and wilderness for
Canadian Museums including the
Canadian Museum of Nature in
Ottawa, the
Alberta Provincial Museum in
Edmonton, the
Provincial Museum in
Victoria, the
Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature in
Winnipeg and the
Cultural Heritage Centre in
Baker Lake. He completed a 51-foot diorama depicting a
Red River buffalo hunt for the opening of the
Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature in Winnipeg by her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth.
Tillenius travelled across Canada in 1954 to create a series of 200
large oil paintings of Canada's wildlife and wilderness landscapes
entitled "Monarchs of the Canadian Wilds", commissioned by the
Monarch Life Assurance Company. These paintings are now grouped together in a collection at
The Pavilion Gallery at
Assiniboine Park
in Winnipeg. Hundreds of thousands of reproductions of these paintings
and their accompanying texts have been distributed across Canada and
around the world. Tillenius says that "It is my hope that people who saw
them would be moved to preserve some of that matchless wilderness we
are now so blessed with but which will disappear unless people who care
unite to safeguard it." And "I want to create a body of paintings that
will remain when the wilderness that inspired them has disappeared under
asphalt highways, hydro lines and
the survey
trails of oil exploration companies." The paintings depict many of
Canada's principal large animals; grizzlies, black and polar bears,
timber wolves, mountain lions, musk-oxen, woodland and barren caribou,
moose, pronghorned antelope, dall and bighorn sheep, mule and white-tail
deer.
Between 1957 and 1959 Tillenius travelled by pack-horse on a number of trips in the
Canadian Rockies and
Waterton Lakes with rancher, author and environmentalist friend
Andy Russell. In May 1959 he packed into the
Kluane with Andy and Dick Russell to paint and draw grizzly bears, wolves, moose and golden eagles.
Tillenius left for a study trip to
Europe in 1962 and was able to view the works of
Anders Zorn,
Bruno Liljefors of
Upsala,
Sweden and the animal painter and illustrator
Harald Wiberg. He also studied the
Impressionists and traveled to
Scotland to view the
Sargents in the Tate in
London.
In 1964 Tillenius joined
Ralph Hedlin who was on a writing and photography assignment for
Maclean's, and the pair traveled with
Inuit by
dog team, lived in
igloos, and observed firsthand the hunt for
polar bears on
Southampton Island. In August of that year, he traveled to
Vancouver Island to hunt with
Jim Dewar and to choose the environment and paint the background to be depicted in a cougar diorama in
Victoria.
Tillenius continued to study museum methods, diorama construction and mammal groups. In 1967 he visited the
Buffalo Park near
Wainwright,
Alberta to record the reminiscences of old
buffalo herders.
In 1968, Tillenius and
Ralph Hedlin traveled to
Southampton Island again to observe a polar bear hunt and Eskimo life as studies for a polar bear diorama. Tillenius also completed his
pronghorn and buffalo dioramas in time for the opening of the
Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature.
Tillenius taught wildlife drawing classes at the
Okanagan Summer School of the Arts near
Penticton,
British Columbia for ten years until 1978. He has also taught many other artists including bronze sculptor
Peter Sawatzky, cowboy artist
John Moyers and cowgirl artist
Terri Moyers.
In 2005, Tillenius painted two of sixty cement polar bears, each 8
feet (2.4 m) tall and weighing 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg), created as a
fundraising project for
Cancer Care Manitoba. "
Knights of the Polar Circle" features 15 smaller polar bears painted on it in a number of story themes. "
Pondering Grizzly" (posing with Tillenius in photo, above) was the only grizzly bear in the collection and now stands guard in front of
Winnipeg City Hall on Main Street.
Peter Sawatzky assisted Tillenius by creating a hump on the bear's back and permanent claws characteristic of grizzly bears.
Tillenius's paintings are found in private and corporate collections across
North America and in
Japan and
Sweden. His career of painting, drawing and sketching continues as of 2010.
Death
On January 24, 2012, it was reported that Tillenius had died.
[1] Subsequent news reports revealed he died on January 22 at the age of 98.
[2]
Recognition
Clarence Tillenius is a:
Clarence Tillenius received the following distinctive awards and elections:
Tillenius's dioramas were designated as
National Treasures in 2007 by the
Canadian Museum of Nature in
Ottawa.
The Pavilion Gallery
in Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park opened a permanent gallery honoring
Tillenius and his art in 1998. A collection of his work remains on
public display year round.
Conservation work
Tillenius sat on numerous committees to preserve tracts of Manitoba
wilderness to benefit wildlife. He felt strongly that human encroachment
eliminates wildlife habitat and species, and this is the reason he
painted wildlife and wilderness.
Books
- Sketch Pad out-of-doors. Artist's instructional aid. Trails of the Interlake Studio, First published 1956, Reprinted 1962, 1986.
- Days of the Buffalo. Paintings. Trails of the Interlake Studio, 1998.
- Tillenius. Celebrated the opening of the Clarence Tillenius
Gallery on the second floor of The Pavilion in Assiniboine park. Trails
of the Interlake Studio, 1998.
- Buffalo. Edited by John E. Foster, Dick Harrison, I. S.
McLaren, includes a section written by Tillenius on 'An Artist Among the
Buffalo'; and a section written by I.S. McLaren on Tillenius as an
artist. The University of Alberta Press, 1992.
- Deer Hunting Hints. by C.I. Tillenius, Canadian Industries Limited
Art publications
Other pieces of Tillenius's art were published in magazines across the continent including:
Tillenius also provided illustrations for the following books:
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