Artist’s mountain landscapes return to Jasper

It isn’t what made him famous, but Jack Beder’s mountain landscape artwork has made its way back to the place he fell in love with. 

The Yellowhead Museum and Archives hosted an opening Friday night for an exhibition of Beder’s original oil paintings and sketches in charcoal and ink pen. The opening was attended by Karen Reynolds, Beder’s daughter, who said she was the reason her father came to Jasper. 

“I was the first in the family who fell in love with the mountains,” she said. Reynolds took a summer job at the Banff Springs while she was in university, and when she returned with photos of the Rocky Mountains her father was astounded.

For two summers in the late 60s, Beder and wife Katie traveled to Alberta. They spent about half their time in Jasper, half in Banff, and Beder sketched and painted what he saw along the way.

Doug MacLean, director of the Canadian Art Gallery in Canmore, said easterners often have  a difficult time capturing mountains, but Beder seemed to have a knack for it. Beder’s talent also showed through his ability to achieve the correct hues on site, as opposed to painting in a studio from a photograph.

“The colours on Kerkeslin are so brave, it could easily have looked corny, but if you hit it like he did... he got it,” MacLean said, pointing to a painting of a bright pink sunset reflected on Mt. Kerkeslin. “Being able to do that on site, get it right, I think that says a lot about his ability.”

Looking to the paintings displayed at the museum as examples, MacLean points out Beder’s “incredible brushwork, he’s able to step us back without blowing his perspective.”

Born in Poland in 1910, Beder immigrated  in 1926 to Montreal, a city whose cabarets and street scenes appeared in his better-known pieces.

Since Beder passed away in 1987, Reynolds has a new appreciation for her father’s work. “Growing up in the household, I didn’t pay much attention,” she said. “I knew what he did and I liked it, but a lot I never saw until long after he was gone.”

What’s important to Reynolds now is not making money from Beder’s paintings, but inviting others to share his experience. “I think he would have been pleased that this show is here,” she said. “It’s just wonderful, I feel privileged to be able to do this for my father.”