Skip to main content
Open this photo in gallery:

"Despondency, How Often at Night and Harvest of Our Mere Humanism Years" (1963; oil on masonite). Mandatory credit: The Estate of William Kurelek, courtesy of the Wynick/Tuck Gallery, Toronto. William Kurelek underwent a radical shift in his view of himself as an artist after his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1957.The Estate of William Kurelek, courtesy of the Wynick/Tuck Gallery, Toronto.

1 of 4
Open this photo in gallery:

"I Spit on Life" (c. 1953-54; watercolour on board). While living in England in the fifties he had produced a body of dark, depressing paintings that documented his attempted suicide, his painful childhood recollections of growing up on the Prairies, and the general psychological and emotional anguish he had experienced throughout his life.

2 of 4
Open this photo in gallery:

"Polish-Irish Fight" (1977; mixed media on masonite). Prior to his conversion, Kurelek viewed himself as a romantic, a communist and an atheist, a three-part identity he abandoned in his re-invention as a proselytizer with a palette board and a message of impending and unavoidable Armageddon

3 of 4
Open this photo in gallery:

"This is the Nemesis" (1965; mixed media on masonite). This was Kurelek's apocalyptic vision of the destruction of Hamilton, Ont.

4 of 4

Interact with The Globe