Leonard and Reva Brooks: Artists in Exile in San Miguel de Allende PDF
Preview Leonard and Reva Brooks: Artists in Exile in San Miguel de Allende
Leonard and Reva Brooks This page intentionally left blank Leonard and Reva Brooks Artists in Exile in San Miguel de Allende J O HN V I R T UE McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca © McGill-Queen's University Press 2001 ISBN 0-7735-2298-0 Legal deposit fourth quarter 2001 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for its publishing activities. It also acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for its publishing program. Acknowledgment for permission to reproduce material can be found on page 390. National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Virtue, John, 1934 Leonard and Reva Brooks: artists in exile in San Miguel de Allende Includes index. ISBN 0-7735-2298-0 i. Brooks, Leonard, 1911- 2. Brooks, Reva, 1913- 3. Artists - Canada - Biography. I. Title. ND249.B766V57 2001 709'.2'27i C2001-9OO486-9 To the Virtue family: Anna, Mark, Laura, and Madeline This page intentionally left blank Contents FOREWORD Scott Symons ix AUTHOR'S NOTE xv PART ONE Beginnings 1 PART TWO A Career Is Launched 37 PART THREE The War Years 69 PART FOUR A Photographer Is Born in Mexico 93 PART FIVE Trouble in Paradise 119 PART SIX Disappointments and Difficult Decisions 163 PART SEVEN A Writer Takes the Stage 181 viii Contents PART EIGHT Emotional Strains 221 PART NINE New Directions 253 PART TEN No Joking Matter 271 PART ELEVEN Troubled Travels 289 PART TWELVE Recognition at Last 313 NOTES 349 CHRONOLOGY 377 EXHIBITIONS 383 BIBLIOGRAPHY 387 INDEX 390 Foreword The biography of Leonard and Reva Brooks is an adventure story in its own right. I cannot quickly think of any element it does not contain. Rags to rich- es, yes, it's there. Deportations, shootouts, spy and CIA factors, all there. Murders, murder attempts, suicide, the sexual picaresque, marital devotion, failures, triumphs, all duly accounted for. Not to mention an attendant array of personalities, non-personalities, life-clowns, and philosophers. Leonard and Reva Brooks each came of poor, not to say impoverished, backgrounds. And each received scant education. They ended up hobnobbing with the nabobs, ambassadors, and other artists as distinguished as them- selves. The Canadian art scene beat a path to their door in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Dear friends as varied as Marshall McLuhan, Earle Birney, and the York Wilsons were frequently there. Not only Canadians, but as well the Mexican art elite recognized them and sought them out. Siqueiros was a great admirer, as was Gunther Gerzso. And Mexico, including the Mexican State, recognized their worth long before their home city of Toronto took real notice of them. In many ways it can be said that Toronto's neglect of the Brooks made them! They fled the frequent meanness of spirit in Toronto and settled in San Miguel de Allende soon after the Second World War, Leonard living off a small veterans' grant and his wits. Teaching at Bellas Artes, the fine arts school, in San Miguel. No, they didn't intend to settle there. But force of circumstances, lack of art jobs in Canada and the pervasive hostility of the Canadian art scene, kept them there. To their benefit, and finally to posterity's benefit. All that is to oversimplify. There is an entire Brooks story and trajectory prior to their Mexico years. Leonard's time in England, in Spain, travelling threadbare. Sometimes helped by artists as distinguished as Sir Frank Brangwyn. A picaresque time, yes, and picturesque, very. But the core story is the years in San Miguel de Allende, from 1947 to the pres- ent. Story culminating in San Miguel as Leonardbrooksland. Or as famous cel- list Gilberto Munguia put it recently: "I consider Leonard to be the inspiration, the impulse, the catalyst, that set off the marvellous migration of northerners to San Miguel. Not only did he inspire the art scene but also the music scene ..."
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