Walter Yarwood
(1917–)
(–1996)
Walter Yarwood
1917–1996
Walter Yarwood (1917–1996) is a Canadian Abstract Expressionist painter, sculptor, and founding member of Painters Eleven. He produced Abstract Expressionist paintings from the mid-1950s until 1960 when he turned to focus his practice on sculpture, producing a large number of public art commissions across Canada.
After attending Western Technical School in Toronto, Yarwood worked in a publicity firm and as a freelance commercial artist. He shared studio space with painters Ronald York Wilson, Oscar Cahen, and Jack Bush. From 1950 to 1952, he attended the San Miguel Allende School of Fine Arts in Mexico City. Upon returning to Canada, Yarwood and a group of other painters interested in abstraction formed Painters Eleven in response to the emergence of Abstract Expressionism in New York. Their first exhibition was held in 1954 at Roberts Gallery in Toronto. The group disbanded in 1960.
At this time, Yarwood stopped painting and transitioned to sculpture, producing a number of public artworks between 1960 and 1970. He began working with recuperated metals before turning to welded steel, cast aluminium, bronze, iron, brass, wood, and found objects. He often created effects on the metal’s surface using acid. Between 1970 and 1979, he taught drawing, photography, and sculpture classes at Humber College in Toronto. In 1979, Yarwood moved to Port Rowan, a town on Lake Erie. Freed from his responsibilities, he began painting again with oil and distemper in the summer and watercolour in the winter. He continued painting until his death in 1996.
Yarwood’s work has been exhibited internationally, and his sculptural commissions continue to have a lasting presence across Canada. His work is held in many museum collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, among others. During his lifetime, Yarwood was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, the Ontario Society of Artists, and the Canadian Group of Painters.