JACK BEDER, CAS, CSPWC, CSGA (Canadian, 1910-1987)
Strawstack
(New Brunswick) 1946
 
Oil painting on board
Signed 'Beder' lower right
Titled and dated verso. Inventory #424.
16 inches by 20 inches (n original hand-carved artist's frame)
 
Jack Beder was born in Opatów, Poland, in 1910. At the age of 16, he emigrated to Montreal. He studied at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal (Montreal School of Fine Arts) from 1929 to 1934. As a member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour and the Canadian Society of Graphic Art, he regularly participated in exhibitions of the Art Association of Montreal (beginning in 1931) and the Contemporary Arts Society of Montreal (as of 1939). He exhibited at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
 
According to the McCord Museum (Montreal): "Jack Beder was one of the most representative members of a group of artists known as the "Jewish Painters of Montreal" who depicted the social realism of the city during 1930s and 1940s. This term, first used by the media to describe the participants in the annual Young Men’s – Young Women’s Hebrew Association art show in the 1930s, was popularized by art historian Esther Trépanier in the 1980s."
 
The subject of a 2004 retrospective at Concordia University’s Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Beder’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, National Portrait Gallery, Museum London, London, Ontario; Concordia University, Montreal; Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Jasper Yellowhead Museum & Archives, Alberta; Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick; Donald Berman Maimonides Geriatric Centre, Montreal; Mount Sinai Hospital, Montreal; as well as in the corporate collections of IBM, Shell Canada, Calgary; Royal Bank of Canada and Power Corporation of Canada.