Walter J. Phillips

Phillips was born in Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, England. As a youth, he studied at the Birmingham School of Art. After studying abroad in South Africa and Paris, he worked as a commercial artist in England. In June 1913 he moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he lived for more than 28 years. He first traveled to British Columbia in 1927.{{cite web |title=Works |url=https://www.heffel.com/Auction/LotDetails_E?Request=iZTDNdl2DfJc8jRi4pFzNF4FyYcqe80krsL77dDV7HA22fVbrPA6LM988u1hciSicAOzpheAC5hh2VhEUI1WKu5Xzq4w046mqWi0Jl7fugYJ0xgp8146PE+tN+u6yQwXvuyFViYzKHuwmR5u3vuWozhZmR9Y4b0Zj5nOs9cHpgbuhuBHNbsYs7zG+B0FzjyBp2bQEWfyjKvYh6prRYp9O4FL0pVvrg6h4DLY0w6723A= |website=www.heffel.com |publisher=Heffel Auction House, Nov 23. 2023 |access-date=2 November 2023}} Phillips died in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1963.

Phillips is famous for his woodcuts and watercolour sketches. His artistic career spanned from the 1900s through the 1940s, during which time his work was exhibited throughout North America and Great Britain. Common subjects for Phillips included the lakes of Manitoba—York Boat on Lake Winnipeg (1930) is a well-known print—the prairies, and in his later years, the Rocky Mountains, where his ashes were scattered.

In 1940 he was asked to become a resident artist at the Banff Centre, then known as the Banff School of Fine Arts, where he played an important role in the development of their visual arts program. Its Walter Phillips Gallery, which focuses on contemporary art, is named after him. The Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta holds an extensive collection of Phillips works and a research archive.[http://www.glenbow.org/collections/art/research/phillips.cfm Glenbow Museum: Collections & Research]

In 1933, he was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.{{cite web|title=Members since 1880|url=http://www.rca-arc.ca/en/about_members/since1880.asp|publisher=Royal Canadian Academy of Arts|accessdate=11 September 2013|archive-date=26 May 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110526215339/http://www.rca-arc.ca/en/about_members/since1880.asp|url-status=dead}} He was a member of the Canadian Painters Etchers Society; the Manitoba Society of Artists; the Society of Gravers-Painters in Colour, London, England; and the Society of Print Makers of California.{{cite book |last1=Bradfield |first1=Helen |title=Art Gallery of Ontario: the Canadian Collection |date=1970 |publisher=McGraw Hill |location=Toronto |isbn=0070925046|url=https://search.library.utoronto.ca/search?N=0&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nu=p_work_normalized&Np=1&Ntt=Helen%20Bradfield%2C%20canadian%20collection%20%2C%20art%20gallery%20of%20ontario&Ntk=Anywhere |accessdate=2020-08-02}}

On 17 February 1997 Canada Post issued 'York Boat on Lake Winnipeg, 1930, Walter J. Phillips' in the Masterpieces of Canadian art series. The stamp was designed by Pierre-Yves Pelletier based on a woodcut "York Boat on Lake Winnipeg" (1930) by Walter Joseph Phillips in the National Gallery of Canada. The 90¢ stamps were printed by Ashton-Potter Limited.[http://data4.collectionscanada.gc.ca/netacgi/nph-brs?s1=(art.TITP.)+Or+(art.TITI.+And+null.B742.)&l=20&d=STMP&p=1&u=http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/archivianet/02011702_e.html&r=13&f=G&Sect1=STMP Canada Post stamp] On May 26, 2010, Phillips' print "Summer Idyll" reached US$30,109 at auction by Heffel Fine Art.

An exhibition of Phillips’ woodcuts was held at the McMichael Gallery in 2020.

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• Boulet, Roger. Walter J. Phillips : the complete graphic works, Markham, Ontario : M. Bernard Loates, 1981. [http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/ourl/res.php?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_tim=2011-06-26T15%3A43%3A44Z&url_ctx_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=2615183&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fcollectionscanada.gc.ca%3Aamicus National Library of Canada, Amicus No. 2615183]
• {{cite book |last1=Green |first1=Nancy E. |last2=Rutherford|first2=Kate|last3=Tomlinson|first3=Toni|title=Walter J. Phillips |date=2013 |publisher=Pomegranate Communications Inc. |location=Portland, Oregon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3DVqmAEACAAJ |access-date=23 September 2023}}

• [http://www.sharecom.ca/phillips/contents.html Walter J. Phillips Website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120810021321/http://www.sharecom.ca/phillips/contents.html |date=2012-08-10 }}
• {{FadedPage|id=Phillips, Walter Joseph|name=Walter J. Phillips|author=yes}}
• [http://www.wjphillips.ca/ Official Walter J Phillips Catalogue Raisonne of Prints]
• [http://www.banffcentre.ca/wpg/ Walter Phillips Gallery]
• {{cite web|url= http://projects.vanartgallery.bc.ca/publications/75years/pdf/Phillips_Walter_46.pdf |title=Vancouver Art Gallery document with artwork and biography }} {{small|(366 KB)}}
• Glenbow Museum's Impress: Prints, Artists, and Ideas website has high resolution images of Phillips [http://www.glenbow.org/impress/site/#impView=cs works, his printmaking tools, as well as interviews with the artist] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120604170330/http://www.glenbow.org/impress/site/#impView=cs |date=2012-06-04 }} and [http://www.glenbow.org/impress/site/#impView=ap&impAction=detail&impItem=walterjphillips.xml an in-depth artist profile for educators] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120604170330/http://www.glenbow.org/impress/site/#impView=ap&impAction=detail&impItem=walterjphillips.xml |date=2012-06-04 }}

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Category:1884 births

Category:1963 deaths

Category:Canadian male painters

Category:People from Barton-upon-Humber

Category:Canadian woodcarvers

Category:Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts

Category:Canadian male artists

Category:English emigrants to Canada

Category:20th-century Canadian male artists

Category:20th-century Canadian printmakers

Category:20th-century Canadian painters