Kurelek. A Biography

Toronto: MacMillan of Canada, 1987. Heavy card covers. Cover photograph: self-portrait (1950,1953) by William Kurelek. Artist, author, prophet, family man, social activist, lecturer, and fervent Catholic.....painter William Kurelek was a complex man of passionate convictions and artistic genius. Here is the full story of the dramatic and tormented life from which he produced his landscapes of gentle prairie nostalgia and such vivid and memorable works as 'The Maze'. Author Patricia Morley explores Kurelek's life-long conflict with his patriarchal Ukranian-born father, and his struggles to assert himself as an artist; his difficult years in two English psychiatric hospitals; his sudden conversion to Catholicism in his late twenties; his rapid rise to fame on his return to canada in 1954, the ensuing years of artistic success and marriage; and the hectic and painful years leading to his death of cancer at age fifty in 1977. The author has vividly pictured Kurelek's emergence from the malestrom of his life as one of Canada's most successful artists. 90 b/w photographs and 8 color plates. The book includes biographical references and index. The color plates are listed. Bookplate to fep, name to title page. This book has a nearly new appearance....bright, tight, immaculate.. Soft Cover. Near Fine.