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Stanley Morel Cosgrove
Stanley Cosgrove was a painter, draughtsman and muralist. Over a
seventy-year career, he
maintained a consistent
artistic path, creating
serene figurative
representations that
explored three principal
subjects: forests, women and
still lifes. In his
paintings, he placed a
strong emphasis on formal
relationships through an
economy of means, with
simplified forms and a
limited palette.
Cosgrove attended Montreal's École des Beaux-Arts from 1929 to 1935,
studying under Henri
Charpentier, Joseph
Saint-Charles, and Charles
Maillard. At the Art
Association of Montreal, he
took drawing classes from
Edwin Holgate, who became a
lifelong friend. After
completing his studies,
Cosgrove spent several
months painting in the
Gaspé, with the support of
arts benefactor Huntley
Drummond, and three summers
in the Charlevoix, along
with Jean Paul Lemieux, Jean
Palardy and Jori Smith. In
1938, he assisted Holgate in
painting a mural for the
Canadian pavilion at the New
York World's Fair.
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The year 1939 proved to be pivotal for Cosgrove. He held his first solo
show at the École des
Beaux-Arts de Québec, and
exhibited with the
Contemporary Arts Society
and at the Musée du Québec.
Then, he was awarded a
bursary to study in France.
As war had broken out,
however, he changed his
focus to Mexico, having long
taken an interest in that
country's culture and art,
particularly in the frescoes
of José Clemente Orozco.
Cosgrove arrived in Mexico in early 1940 and remained there for four
years. He studied under
Manuel Rodriguez Lozano at
the Academia de San Carlos,
Mexico City, and spent eight
intensely rewarding months
apprenticing with Orozco.
From him, Cosgrove learned
the fresco techniques that
would have an enduring
effect on his work: the
application of thin, dry
layers of paint; the
attention to form and
composition; the subtle
colours.
Cosgrove returned to Montreal at the end of 1943 to take up a part-time
teaching position at the
École des Beaux-Arts. Over
the next decade, he was very
productive, participating in
numerous exhibitions and
signing an exclusive
contract with the Dominion
Gallery. He joined the
Canadian Group of Painters
and was elected to the Royal
Canadian Academy. In 1953,
Cosgrove and his good friend
Goodridge Roberts both found
themselves painting in the
south of France on
government bursaries. In
1958, he left his teaching
position at the École des
Beaux-Arts and, for the next
four decades, devoted
himself to painting and
exhibiting his work.
The simplified forms and multiple perspectives of Still-life (1947)
contribute to the liveliness
of this work. The Blue Dress
(1949) is typical of
Cosgrove's portraits, with
its placid Madonna-like
figure, outlined in black.
Landscape (1954), with its
sense of peace and calm, and
its absence of humans, is
characteristic of his forest
scenes.
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