Herbert Siebner at Winchester Modern

 Herbert Siebner: A Sixty-Year Legacy

Winchester Galleries proudly presents a special exhibition to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Herbert Siebner's arrival in Victoria.

Following the Second World War, this passionate, spontaneous artist found nothing to keep him in Berlin, and decided to come to Canada, "the land of opportunity." Travelling across the country by train with his young family, he didn't stop until he got to Victoria.

It was 1954,  sixty years ago, and Victoria warmly embraced him.

Here, Siebner was able to live the artistic, bohemian life he valued, filled with good friends and outrageous parties. And most importantly, he was able to develop his art from the gentle European watercolours and mythological figurative sgraffitos to the riveting, narrative abstract oils and acrylics.

Siebner came into his own here, due in no small part to his infectious self-promotion, but also to the timely one-man exhibition organized for him at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria by then-director Colin Graham. From that ground-breaking exhibit in 1955, and from many other solo exhibitions and group shows with The Limners over the years, Siebner's work became firmly entrenched in the West Coast canon.

Winchester Modern 758 Humboldt Street

March 8 to 29, 2014

Opening reception: Saturday, March 8, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.

The Linmers: A Victoria Legacy at Winchester Gallery on Humboldt st.

In 1971 the most experienced professional artists in Victoria banded together as The Limners Society. The Limners - the name is derived from “illuminators” - were mature artists of broad international experience and, for more than a quarter century, they occupied the top level of Victoria’s unexpectedly rich cultural scene. Unlike other Canadian groups - Toronto’s Painters Eleven, the Regina Five - who were brought together for an exhibition, the Limners joined forces in friendship and mutual respect. They never drafted an artistic manifesto but we can recognize their deep roots and shared humanist outlook.

Individually, The Limners arrived in Victoria, then a remote British colony of insular gentility, from a world torn asunder by war. Herbert Siebner had been an unwilling conscript into the German army. Richard Ciccimarra, an esthete from Austria, fled after the war to Victoria. Max Bates of Calgary was pursuing a brilliant artistic career in England when hostilities broke out, and almost immediately was taken as a prisoner of war. Robert De Castro was a tank gunner in the Canadian army whose experiences marked his life. Each developed an art expressive of the desire to understand and transform the human condition.


These artists brought to Victoria international art education - from Berlin, Antwerp, New York and Stockholm. Jan and Helga Grove left the national art institute in Istanbul. The new University of Victoria, beginning in 1964, had a magnetic effect. Robin Skelton, poet and bon vivant, with his wife Sylvia arrived from England to found the creative writing department and hosted a literary and philosophical “salon”. The enthusiasm of the community for its new university was matched by the vigorous programming of exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Established in 1951, the gallery was headed by Colin Graham, a graduate of Cambridge and the University of California at Berkeley.

 www.winchestergalleriesltd.com

Herbert Siebner–Elements of Surprise–photo review

May 12, 2012

Herbert Siebner at Winchester Galleries on Humboldt. St.

Selected Graphics

A Benefit for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation

At 796 Humboldt Street, in The Belvedere

 Opening Reception
Saturday October 9, 2010
2:00 – 4:00 pm