The Art of Esther Warkov: Magic off Main (review)

The author is not an art historian but rather someone who has written about Canadian art and culture and in the past has demonstrated a particular interest in ethnicity, multiculturalism, and gender issues. Initially Beverly J. Rasporich's focus is on Winnipeg artist Esther Warkov's connections to Winnipeg's famous north end and the artist's fascination with her own Jewish heritage. Certainly the titles of many of Warkov's paintings confirm such linkages, be they Rolling Home to Moses (1980) and Shutter Street Rabbi (1982-83) or Einstein Performing the Theory of Inequality (1985-87).

The book is most interesting when the author addresses the art work directly, elaborating and explaining Warkov's multilayered content and often subversive and/or amusing messages in such works as Elsa Turning into Eve. No paean to Einstein, this is, in fact, a reference to Einstein's second wife, who according to Rasporich 'is reported to have looked after all of Einstein's domestic needs so that he might continue to do his scientific research without interruption.' In her more recent three-dimensional drawings, which Rasporich identifies, I thought distressingly, as 'Warkov's Mature Work' and which begin in the 1990s, Warkov continues her involvement with women's situation through a novelistic exploration of someone's personal history. It is Edgar Lee Masters and Thornton Wilder who seem to form the narrative prototypes for her staged displays. In House of Tea (1997-98) Warkov imagines the life of a turn-of-the-century woman whom we then see being lowered into her coffin. Warkov explains: 'The woman has since died and she is laid out in her coffin with her life experiences. This semi-liberated woman from the early twentieth century was very wealthy, talented and beautiful. As a member of the upper level of society she has experience in the rituals associated with the female members of her class; even in death she continues to pour tea from within her coffin.'

The book is less successful when the author attempts to establish Warkov's links to international Surrealism even though the artist is clearly uncomfortable with such connections. That paintings in the Medieval Renaissance Gort Collection at the Winnipeg Art Gallery are as likely a jumping-off point for Warkov's leaps of imagination and extended storytelling - her The House of Cranach (1982-83) even specifically references paintings from that collection - might have been more fruitful an area for exploration as well as Warkov's reliance on so many pre-twentieth-century artists as models and inspiration. The author's attempt to establish Warkov's postmodern bona fides also seemed strained, though Warkov is happy enough to go along with such pigeonholing. To one of the author's questions Warkov replies, 'You should pardon the expression PMS,' 'which is postmodern syndrome, but you know I could be considered in that realm of work.'

This is a nice book with excellent reproductions of Warkov's art. It is hardly the author's fault that the editors chose to showcase Warkov's often monumental paintings and three dimensional drawings in such a small format (seven by ten inches). Nevertheless the illustrations do provide an extensive visual survey of Warkov's work from 1969 to 1998 ('Early and Middle Years Paintings' and 'Flat Drawings and Mature Work Three-Dimensional Drawings') which is both useful and enlightening. What is missing, and I think it is a serious omission, are examples of Warkov's earliest drawings, such as the well-known Portrait of Lydia (Winnipeg Art Gallery Collections) and the inclusion of any of her student work or other early paintings and drawings which date from the late 1950s and early 1960s, though some are mentioned. Providing a more Canadian and Manitoba context for understanding Warkov's art would have been rewarding, as there is a decidedly regional flavour to some of Warkov's endeavours which could have been more fully worked out. A passing reference to Ivan Eyre is...