I was asked to identify the artist involved in painting three oil on canvas paintings, representing locations around Vancouver. The paintings were not signed, however, they did bear a monogram, lower right hand corner, with a date of 1978. The owner had apparently inherited the pieces from his father some years earlier and recalled his father telling him that he had purchased the paintings directly from the artist, possibly on Granville Island. Since the paintings were of local scenes I surmised that the artist probably was local or had spent some time in Vancouver during the mid to late seventies.

In conversation with the artist he mentioned that he began using the monogram rather that signing his name, due to his admiration of the Pre-Raphaelites and their rejection of the conventions established by the Royal Academy. His choice of the stylized MS comes from a graphic design background.

MS, Untitled (no date), oil on canvas

MS, Untitled (no date), oil on canvas

MS, Untitled (no date), oil on canvas

Maurice Spira was born in Kent, England, July 4, 1944 and studied at The Provincial Art School, Kent, from 1960 to 1964. He immigrated to Canada in 1966 and settled in Montreal, where he became involved in radical politics. “That’s where I developed an analysis that saw various forms of authority as being something that we create ourselves”¹.

Although the subject matter of the paintings I was asked to identify are innocuous landscapes, Spira is somewhat controversial. When I visited the Surrey Art Gallery to purchase a 1988 exhibition catalogue of his work, the receptionist remembered MS and in particular his grotesque and ghoulish paintings. The curator of the Surrey show did not hang one of his paintings because “there would be a tremendous problem with the painting”², however an image of the painting did appear in the exhibition catalogue. His work has been described as “grotesque images of society’s dark power mongers”³ and in 1989 he cancelled a show due to what he perceived as censorship of his work, not by the public, but by a Vancouver gallery. In 1996 his painting ‘Yuletide Cheer’ was removed from a Gibsons art gallery when one of the gallery board members remarked “Gee, this is going to cause trouble. I know it is.”⁴

Although somewhat controversial, Maurice Spira has stood by his Pre-Raphaelite credo and I admire him for doing so.

¹ Godley, Elizabeth. Vancouver, Sun, July 23, 1988; ² Godley, Elizabeth. Vancouver, Sun, Dec 2, 1989; ³ Godley, Elizabeth. Vancouver Sun July 23 1988; ⁴ Proctor Jason. Vancouver Province Feb 20 1996.

For more information visit the FACTS (Fine Art Care and Treatment Standards) website at www.artfacts.org.