White Line Painting No. 1

Ron Bloore, a native of Brampton, Ontario, settled in Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1958 to teach at the School of Art at Regina College (now the University of Saskatchewan). There he was also appointed director of the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery. In 1960, he organized a national exhibition that brought together five artists: Kenneth Lochhead, Arthur McKay, Douglas Morton, Ted Godwin, and Bloore himself, a group known as the Regina Five. White Line Painting No. 1 was among the first paintings Bloore created during this period. It caught the attention of Charles Comfort, then director of the National Gallery of Canada, earning Bloore a place in the contingent of Canadian artists at the 1961 São Paulo Biennale. The works in Bloore’s eponymous flagship series “attain a pinnacle of refinement and elegance, and dominate the very walls on which they are presented,” wrote Robert Fulford, of the Toronto Daily Star, in March 1962. What’s more, White Line No. 2 (1962) was acquired by the National Gallery of Canada in 1984, and White Line No. 4 (1962) by the Canada Council Art Bank.