John Reynolds
(1916–)
(–1999)
John Reynolds
1916–1999
John McCombe “Mac” Reynolds (1916–1999) was a Canadian sculptor, painter, photographer, and historian born in Toronto. Reynolds is best known for his sculpted portraiture works as he “never found anything as inspiring as representation of the human form,” and he created busts of notable figures from poet Gwendolyn MacEwan to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Reynolds was a student of Arthur Lismer and Emmanuel Hahn. While studying under Hahn when Reynolds was only 12 years old, he was selected to participate in a series of experimental classes in Hahn’s studio at the Ontario College of Art. After this, The Royal Ontario Museum and the Group of Seven studio building were Reynold’s playground, allowing him to escape and create his own work.
Reynolds stated that in order for him to consider his work successful, he needed to create an empathetic connection with his models.
While working for the CBC, Reynolds lived in Montreal for seven years during the 1940s where he became friends with artists like Jean-Paul Riopelle and Marcelle Ferron, as well as poets like Gilles Heneault. During his twenty-eight years at the CBC, Reynolds was a historian in the program of archives department which placed him in the circle of journalists Rene Levesque and Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
In the 1970s, Reynolds was living and sculpting in England where in 1973, he casted a series of thirty-eight bronzes at the foundry in Basingstoke.
Reynolds was the first Canadian to be awarded membership in the Royal Society of Sculptors in London at the age of 64. As only members of the society are allowed to create busts of the Queen, Reynolds was placed on a waiting list for the opportunity to do so. At the age of 67, Reynolds received his chance to sculpt the Queen, and according to his son Rolf, his father not only sculpted her but managed to charm and chat with Her Majesty as well as make her laugh.
In the late 1980s, The Fathers of Confederation Memorial Citizens’ Foundation commissioned Reynolds to produce a series of memorial sculptures to commemorate the first Confederation Conference of 1864. Located at the Confederation Centre of the Arts, attached to the provincial building in Charlottetown, the series consisted of busts of the original delegates who gathered for the conference in 1864.
