Aba Bayefsky was
born in Toronto in 1923 and died there in 2001.
He studied at the Toronto Central Technical School
and at the Académie Julien in Paris. In
1944, he was appointed Official War Artist for Canada,
in Europe. Bayefsky received a French Government Scholarship
in 1947 and a Canada Council Fellowship for travel
in India in 1958. After spending some time in Japan, Bayefsky
became interested in the art of “tattoo”. Bayefsky’s
paintings of Toronto’s Kensington Market area are also well-known.
The artist was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy
of Arts, the Canadian Society of Painters in
Water Colour (Pres., 1956-57), the Canadian Group
of Painters (Pres., 1962-63), the Canadian Society
of Graphic Artists (Pres., 1956-57) and the Federation
of Canadian Artists (Pres., Ontario Region 1949-53).
He taught at the Ontario College of Art from
1956 to 1988.
Indian Legends was produced in acrylic polymer
on plaster. The mural conveys the eeriness of a visionary experience
in its whitened-blue colour scheme. Bayefsky described the subject
matter as a synthesis of the natural and supernatural forces in
Canadian Indian mythology.
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