William Kurelek created between an estimated 2,000 and 4,000 works of art in less than thirty years. Prolific and driven, he created easel paintings, massive murals, singular tableaus, and narrative series with multiple works. His was a diverse, even divided, oeuvre that oscillated between the nostalgic and the nightmarish. Although his early paintings are inward-looking, precise, and claustrophobic, Kurelek’s mature work is marked by more general visual propositions about the fluctuating world around him and the common struggles that divide and bind the human family.
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Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 1950
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Zaporozhian Cossacks 1952
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The Maze 1953
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Behold Man Without God 1955
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Self-Portrait 1957
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And, While They Were at Table… 1960–63
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Hailstorm in Alberta 1961
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In the Autumn of Life 1964
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This Is the Nemesis 1965
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Cross Section of Vinnitsia in the Ukraine, 1939 1968
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Reminiscences of Youth 1968
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The Ukrainian Pioneer 1971, 1976
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Glimmering Tapers ’round the Day’s Dead Sanctities 1970
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The Painter 1974
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About the Author
Andrew Kear is chief curator and curator of Canadian art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and a sessional lecturer at the University of Winnipeg.
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Acknowledgements
The Art Canada Institute gratefully acknowledges the support of its generous sponsors.