E. J. Hughes

Edward John Hughes CM OBC RCA (February 17, 1913 – January 5, 2007) was a Canadian painter, known for his images of the land and sea in British Columbia.

Hughes was born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and spent a significant part of his childhood in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Raised during the Depression, he studied at the Vancouver School of Applied Art and Design where he graduated in 1933. His talent was recognized early, one of his teachers was Frederick Varley of the Group of Seven, and another member, Lawren Harris, recommended him for the inaugural Emily Carr Scholarship.

In 1934, he formed a partnership with the muralist Paul Goranson and Orville Fisher in a commercial art firm.

Hughes died of cardiac arrest in Duncan, BC at the age of 93.

When World War II began in 1939, he enlisted with the Royal Canadian Artillery as a gunner and was posted to England. From 1943 to 1946, he served as one of Canada's official war artists. Hughes traveled to England and Alaska where he depicted his concern for ordinary men caught up in this worldwide event.

After being discharged from the military in 1946, he returned to the west coast of Canada with his wife Fern and settled in Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island. Hughes spent much of the remainder of his life living on Vancouver Islandwhere he pursued a lifelong study of the province and its landscape as a professional artist.

In the 1950s, Hughes' reputation grew, especially after he began to be represented by Max Stern, the owner of the Dominion Gallery in Montreal. In 1954, he was one of eighteen Canadian artists commissioned by the Canadian Pacific Railway to paint a mural for the interior of one of the new Park cars entering service on the new Canadian transcontinental train. Each of the murals depicted a different national or provincial park; Hughes' was Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. In 1992, Canada Post used one of his images ("Christie Pass, Hurst Island, B,C.") on a stamp commemorating 125 years of Confederation.

Hughes' paintings are best known for their strong and appealing images of the landscape and seascape of British Columbia. Jack Shadbolt described Hughes as "the most engaging intuitive painter of the BC landscape since Emily Carr." His distinctive style of painting is marked by the use of flattened space, skewed perspective, and simplified shapes.The paintings combine compelling clarity with a sense of the unknown and an appreciation for natural surroundings.

Hughes was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1968. Hughes was awarded with Honorary Doctorates from the University of Victoria in 1994 and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1997.

In 2001, he received the Order of Canada and, in 2005, he was awarded the Order of British Columbia. Both of these awards cited his dedication to representing Canada with passion and originality.

The Vancouver Art Gallery has the most extensive holding of Hughes' work in public hands and mounted a major retrospective exhibition in 2003.

His painting Lake Okanagan was purchased at a rural Ontario yard sale for C$200. Six years later, in 2007, the purchaser sold it at auction for $402,500.

• E. J. Hughes, by Ian Thom (Senior curator, Vancouver Art Gallery). A 226-page hardcover book published by Douglas & McIntyre and the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2002. ISBN 1-55054-899-9. This book was the catologue for the E. J. Hughes exhibition which could be seen at the Vancouver Art Gallery and later at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, and also at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.
• A Journey with E.J. Hughes, By Jacques Barbeau, 2005 180-page hardcover, Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 1-55365-153-7
• E.J. Hughes: The Man and His Art, by Jane G. Cole (Art Professor, Vancouver Island University), 2009 Nanaimo Art Gallery. 32-page paperback. This biography was published to coincide with the release of a number of Giclée prints from the Estate of E.J. Hughes. ISBN 0-9812-6260-0, 978-0-9812-6260-4

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120724141724/http://www.cinnabarvista.com/ejhughes/ E.J. Hughes Restoration: Triumph over hard times," is a 2009 HD documentary on the life of EJ Hughes and the restoration of his Malaspina mural, a large 9x12 foot work of art now worth over 4 million dollars. The documentary was nominated for a Leo Award, and won a Gold Remi from the Huston International Film festival.