Stanley Cosgrove A.R.C.A. (1911-2002) is best known for his distinctive paintings of trees. Described as “clusters of dreamy, spindly-branched trees full of silence,” they were typically painted in soft, pastel colours. Cosgrove’s gentle treatment reflects his interest in the fresco technique.   Encouraged by his mother to pursue a career as an artist, Cosgrove began his studies at the the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Montreal in 1929 under Charles Maillard and Joseph Saint-Charles, and at the school of the Art Association of Montreal under Edwin H. Holgate.

In 1939 Cosgrove won a Quebec Provincial scholarship, which originally was meant to send him to France.  Due to WWII and its ravages of Europe Cosgrove went to New York and then studied in Mexico with the great Mexican muralist, Jose Clemente Orozco.  It was in Mexico that his interest in fresco style began and Orozco was possibly the greatest influence on the development of Cosgrove’s style.

His wooded landscapes are noted for their “purity and certainty of expression; in their unusual transparency and depth of colour and texture; as well as in a certain mystical sense of detachment from the hurly-burly of everyday life...” Cosgrove did not represent the Quebec countryside, where he sketched, but rather presents a self-contained fantasy without time or place. For Cosgrove, he simply painted “perpendiculars and horizontals.”  Trees were an excuse to paint; they were used again and again because of his interest in how he painted and because of an appreciation for constant study. Cosgrove focused on masses of colour, form and patterns. To the viewer, his work reflects states of being and metaphors for feelings.  The paintings are “finished” works, unique during a time when visualizing the process of a work was essential.

Cosgrove’s work gained critical acclaim during his evolving career as draftsmen, painter, teacher and muralist. His work is widely collected and displayed by private collectors and public institutions such as the MOMA, the AGO and the National Gallery of Canada. Cosgrove’s signature style can be summed up as having “great vitality tempered with gentleness and lyricism.”  

SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Museum of Modern Art; National Gallery of Canada; Art Gallery of Ontario; Hart House; Mendel Art Gallery; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Musee du Quebec; Vancouver Art Gallery