Artwork of the Week!

Artwork of the Week!
Week 18:

Ernest Wilson (1933-1987)
Self-portrait (profile)
1957
Ink on paper

This self-portrait was created two years after Ernest Wilson completed his Diploma of Art at the University of Manitoba. Throughout his lifetime, Wilson produced many drawings of himself and he used them as opportunities to capture his noticeably striking, blunt features, but also as a means by which to reveal his brooding intensity. A contemporary of fellow Winnipeg artists Bruce Head, Winston Leathers, Ivan Eyre and Kelly Clark, Wilson was interested in Surrealism early on in his career. When travelling in Europe in 1957, he met renowned Surrealist artist Max Ernst at a café in Paris. Besides drawing intimate sketches of himself and others, Wilson painted large-scale surreal landscape scenes. In order to support himself, Wilson worked as a graphic designer at Pollard Banknote Limited for nearly twenty-five years and he was recognized across the country as a top graphic designer. An excellent writer as well, Wilson penned passionate articles for ArtsWest magazine in the 1970s in a regular column titled “view from the Plain.”