Robert Young. Photo: John Sherlock.
The Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory (AHVA) acknowledges the passing of Robert Young.
Young graduated from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1962 with B.A. Honours in Art History. Young went on to study drawing and printmaking at the City and Guilds of London School of Art, and then obtained an Advanced Diploma in graphics from Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) in 1966.
Young was an associate professor in what was then the Department of Fine Arts from 1982 to 1998, delivering studio courses with an emphasis on drawing, printmaking and painting (Fine Arts 281/282, 381/382, 387, 481/482, and 581/582). Prior to his teaching years at UBC, Young taught at Banff School of Fine Arts and the Emily Carr College of Art and Design.
Professor Emeritus Richard Prince remarks, “Robert Young was a splendid colleague with a wry sense of humour and a talent for saying just the right thing at the end of a troublesome studio faculty meeting.
He was firm in his belief in the interconnectedness of art and personal experience and the individuality of each student. He was raised in Vancouver and was a graduate from our department in the early 1960s when the Department Head was B.C. Binning and there were very few studio courses. He went to Goldsmith’s in London for post-graduate work and came back to Vancouver in the mid-1970s. He began exhibiting his work which was well received and he was recruited into our department in 1982. He taught painting and drawing but encouraged his students to think broadly in the arts and to pursue academic excellence.
Yesterday, I was watching the evening news on the Global network and saw the item on the death of Harry Belafonte. I recall that Robert Young told me some decades ago that the first record album that he purchased was the Harry Belafonte recording Calypso, released in 1956 when Young was eighteen years old. An odd juxtaposition of deaths, but one that speaks to Robert’s interest in and commitment to a larger and continuing appreciation of the cultural and human world.
He was also quite a good auto mechanic and helped me several times with the old clunker I drove in the early 1980s.”
Young had solo exhibitions at Simon Fraser University and the Evergreen Centre, the Burnaby Art Gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Charles H. Scott Gallery, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (1979), the Glenbow Museum, and many others. His work was most recently included earlier this year in the group exhibition Through the Lattice at the Surrey Art Gallery curated by UBC alumnus Rhys Edwards. On his recent paintings, Edwards remarks how “each work pulls from a lifetime spent in the study of history, philosophy, architecture, religion, and science, variously incorporating references to everything from quantum theory to sacred geometry … In their complexities, each painting evokes a universe of mystical resonance and harmonic interconnection between all matter.”
Work circulated by the Paul Kyle Gallery.
Recent group exhibition Through the Lattice at Surrey Art Gallery. View the exhibition guide here.
Artwork donation by Robert Young to the Canadian Art Preservation Foundation.
