Graham Coughtry
Class of 1948

Painter staked out
the cutting edge
with abstract work
_____________
Graham Coughtry helped
define Toronto's art scene
in the 1960's
(The Globe & Mail)

Memory Lane

Graham, his brother Art
and parents lived on Logan Avenue
between Mercille and Notre Dame.
I knew he was a great painter
and I remember my Dad visited him
in the Canary Islands.
Peter Rylander C'56

I knew Graham as one of the St. Lambert "gang", and a very fine person.
David Coll, C'50

JOHN GRAHAM COUGHTRY ( 1931-1999)

Canadian artist who was a member of the group that in the 1950s brought abstract art to Canada; he specialized in works that featured the human figure and became one of the best-known abstract painters in Canada

Graham Coughtry was born in Saint-Lambert, on June 8, 1931. He graduated from St. Lambert High in 1948, and went on to a very interesting life as a famous painter, musician and teacher. He died on Jan.14, 1999, in Claremont, Ont.

He travelled widely in Canada, US and Europe. Spending several years in Ibeza, Spain painting and mixing with the arts set.

He studied under Arthur Lismer and at Montreal Museum of Fine Art, at that Museum's School of Art and Design with Goodridge Roberts, Gordon Webber and Jacques de Tonnancour and then at the Ontario College of Art (1949-53).

He became, along with Michael Snow, Joyce Wieland, Dennis Burton, Gordon Rayner, John Meredith and others, part of the "Isaacs Group," artists joined by the radicalism of their art and jazz. Coughtry became a member of the Artists' Jazz Band formed about 1962.

His art went into the National Gallery and most other Canadian museums. He was a favourite of collectors: Elizabeth Kilbourn, in her book Great Canadian Painting, noted that his 1961 show made him "almost overnight, one of the most celebrated painters in Canada," and that a list of collectors waited to pay $2,000 for one of his pictures, then an unusually high figure. In the 1960s he painted a major mural at the Toronto airport. He also collaborated as a muralist with his friend Irving Grossman, the architect.

He has been involved in group exhibitions in Canada, the United States and Europe, including The Artists Jazz Band, The Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris (1978), Toronto Painting 1953-1965, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (1972), the University of Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, New York (1963), Contemporary Art of the Americas and Spain, Madrid (1963), the Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York (1962, 1971), New Acquisitions, the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1961), the Venice Biennale (1960), the San Paolo International Biennial (1959), the Guggenheim International, New York (1958, 1965), the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1956, 1959), Modern Painting in Canada, the Edmonton Art Gallery (1978), Face To Face - The Figurative, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa (1984), the Art Gallery at Harbourfront (1983, 1982, 1981, 1977), the Mackenzie Art Gallery(1976), the Windsor Art Gallery (1972), Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia (1969), Commonwealth Exhibition, London, England (1962).

His work can be found in many public and private collections in North America, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Detroit Institute of Art, the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Department of External Affairs, the Albright-Knox Museum of Modern Art, Buffalo, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Venice Biennale , the San Paolo International Biennial , the Guggenheim International, New York , the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, B.C., the Windsor Art Gallery, the London Regional Art Gallery, the Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery, Oshawa, the Regina Art Gallery, Saskatchewan, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, the Confederation Art Gallery, Charlottetown, the J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, the University of British Columbia, ! the University of Manitoba, Concordia Art Gallery, Ottawa, MacDonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, Art Gallery of Sudbury, Ontario, Gulf Canada, Moore Corporation, Canadian Industries Ltd. He has designed sets for the Toronto Dance Theatre, at the St. Lawrence Theatre (Painters and the Dance, 1983), and has been commissioned to create public sculpture for the Yorkdale Plaza, Toronto in 1963, a Mural for the Toronto International Airport in 1962, and a wall sculpture for the Beth David Synagogue, Toronto, in 1958.


1963: Two Figures


1964 - Tritons - bronze » North York » Yorkdale Mall


1978: Reclining Woman


1978: Oriental


1983: Odalisque

My memories of Graham Coughtry are vague as I have not seen him for over 60 years!

I do remember he and his family lived in a duplex on Logan Street in St. Lambert between Mercille and Notre Dame. Nearby were his close friends the Bakers and the Cases. He had a brother Arthur who was interested in photography, not painting. I remember Graham as a quiet, unassuming guy who spent most of his time sketching, drawing and "doodling" in his scribblers rather than doing algebra or history!

I also did a bit of pencil drawing and Graham often helped me with perspective, shading and coloration. Somewhere in my house I still have some of these drawings with his markings (unidentified of course).

It was also during this time that Graham and I happened to be members of a "crew" that decorated the St. Lambert High School Gym and stage, for events such as dances, concerts, plays and graduation ceremonies. He of course created and painted the back drops (murals) etc, while I hammered the nails!

I think it was in 1947 that cartoonist Al Capp of "Lil Abner" fame, decided to initiate a "contest" to produce a drawing of one of his cartoon characters called "Lena the Hyena". Graham entered the contest and his Lena won! This could have been the start of his future artistic success and I think brought him a bit of money as well!

After graduating, Coughtry entered the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and lived and painted there for years. In the meantime I went to Medical School at Ottawa University and eventually moved to Edmonton where I lived for over 30 years, thus our paths did not cross after 1948!

However I do remember seeing a huge abstract mural he painted in the 1960's at the Toronto Airport. I don't know if it is still there. I also recall seeing his name and a photo of one of his creations in "the Canadians" a 1967 book by Careless & Brown, plus his name also appeared in Mel Hurting's "Canadian Encyclopedia". Both of these books I still have in my library. I also do recall, over the years, of seeing photos of some of his work in various coffee table art books and have seen some of his paintings at the National Gallery in Ottawa.

Just for fun, I "Googled" his name and among other items is an appreciation by Robert Fulford, written shortly after Graham's death at age 67, in January 1999. This piece contains information that I did not remember or did not even know about – like the fact that Graham was also a jazz trombonist! Obviously Graham Coughtry established himself as an accomplished Canadian painter and his legacy and pictures live on in art galleries and museums across the country.

Classmate Harry Letts.

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