Ernest Caven Atkins
Ernest Caven Atkins (1907–2000) was born in London, Ontario, and raised in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. He began his training in 1924 at the Meyer Both Commercial Art School in Chicago, and from 1925 to 1928 studied at the Winnipeg School of Art under L.L. FitzGerald.
After completing his studies, Atkins worked as a commercial artist with Brigden’s in Winnipeg, where he came into contact with Bertram Brooker, Charles Comfort, and others in the city’s art circles, through which he would have been exposed to contemporary European developments, including aspects of German Expressionism. This, along with the Group of Seven, would have a significant influence on Atkins’ independent work.
Throughout his career, Atkins developed a distinctive approach to painting which demonstrated an engagement with modernist ideas circulating in Canada and abroad. During the war years, he worked in Toronto, producing a series of works in 1942 on the Toronto Shipbuilding Company that reflect an engagement with industrial subject matter.
In 1945, he moved to Birmingham, Michigan, where he worked as an illustrator and designer for the Ford Motor Company until his retirement.
Atkins taught at the Winnipeg School of Art from 1930 to 1934, at Queen’s University summer school in 1943, at the Ontario College of Art in 1945, as well as the University of Toronto, Central Technical School.
Atkins was a member of the Manitoba Society of Artists, the Canadian Group of Painters, and served as President of both the Canadian Society of Graphic Art and the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour. He also belonged to the Ontario Association of Teachers of Art.
A retrospective of Atkins’ watercolours took place at Hart House at the University of Toronto in 1945. Ted Fraser curated two exhibitions of Atkins’ work at the University of Windsor: A Retrospective Exhibition of Selected Works by Caven Atkins Spanning Fifty Years of the Artist's Life in 1979 and Caven Atkins: The Winnipeg Years in 1987.
His work is included in the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian War Museum, the Art Gallery of Algoma, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Art Gallery of Windsor, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton and the Remai Modern, Saskatoon.
