Watercolour
and oil pastel
©2019 Charlene Brown
British-born
artist Alfred Crocker (AC) Leighton came to Canada commissioned to paint the Rockies
by the Canadian Pacific Railway. In
1933, he initiated a summer art school near Banff. This led to the establishment of the Banff
School of Fine Arts, which became the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
In 1952 Leighton
and his wife built a home on a property west of Calgary, with a “300-mile view
of the Rocky Mountains" – paid for with a cheque written on
a page of his sketchbook.
Following
his death in 1965, his wife Barbara, already an artist in her own right,
enrolled at the Alberta College of Art and Design, where she received a diploma
in fibre and metal crafts. At ACAD she found the support of young artists who
were attracted to the Leighton history and the artistic and natural beauty of
their home and property and her idea of turning it into an Art Centre.
In 1970,
Barbara sold half of her quarter-section to invest in the purchase for $1000 of
an abandoned 1919 one-room schoolhouse. Her friends pitched in to help restore
the building and convert it to an art studio, which became the heart of the
Leighton Art Centre’s extensive children’s programs. Eventually, weaving and pottery studios and a large greenhouse were added to
the house, all in the half-timbered Arts & Crafts style of Leighton’s
original design.
* Perhaps I am the only person who has
tended to conflate the Leighton Art Centre and the Leighton Artists Colony...
