Searching For Carle Hessay: The Immigrant Artist Who Shaped My Life

The purpose of this article is to introduce the works of European born Canadian artist Carle Hessay, not only because of their high artistic merit, but also because they speak so eloquently and profoundly to our own time. Much is unknown about this extraordinary artist and international traveller who was caught in some of the seminal events of the first half of the 20th century. My approach in trying to recover and integrate fragmentary evidence is multifaceted. I will (a) draw on my own knowledge of him during the last decades of his life, (b) refer to interviews with a diverse assortment people who knew him, (c) try to recover as much historical information from records and other documentary evidence as possible, and (d) examine some of the most important paintings that constitute his real self-portrait and convey his thoughts and feeling to us in the most accessible way. His work has a surprising and important current relevance for us today. (This article is based on a talk I gave to the Associates of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria on September 13, 2024.).