Skip to main content

A newly discovered cache of paintings by first-nations children in a notorious Vancouver Island school paints a picture of youth who found a creative outlet in the face of abuse and assimilation

Open this photo in gallery:

Deb George, a Cowichan elder who serves as the University of Victoria’s cultural protocol liaison, holds a painting created by residential-school student Arthur Bolton when he was 10 years old.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Globe and Mail

1 of 8
Open this photo in gallery:

Andrea Walsh, a UVic associate professor of visual anthropology, listens as Deb George speaks about the newly discovered collection of 47 paintings made by children at the Alberni Indian Residential School in the late 1950s and early 1960s.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Globe and Mail

2 of 8
Open this photo in gallery:

The paintings were discovered by a field studies class at the University of Victoria in a collection left to the university by volunteer teacher Robert Aller.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Globe and Mail

3 of 8
Open this photo in gallery:

Robert Aller, who studied art with Group of Seven painter Arthur Lismer, ended up on the West Coast because of his interest in first-nations art. In his memoirs, he was critical of the way the students were treated at the residential school.Chad Hipolito/The Globe and Mail

4 of 8
Open this photo in gallery:

As a volunteer art teacher in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Robert Aller obtained museum-grade photographs of first-nations ceremonial masks for the students at Alberni Indian Residential School to study and copy.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Globe and Mail

5 of 8
Open this photo in gallery:

Arthur Bolton arrived at the residential school as a seven-year-old orphan. He drew this painting when he was 10, and recognized it years later when UVic’s Andrea Walsh tracked him down.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Globe and Mail

6 of 8
Open this photo in gallery:

Roughly half of the paintings have been traced back to their creators, and will be returned to them. But in some cases, the artists have asked the university to preserve their work, as means of telling their story.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Globe and Mail

7 of 8
Open this photo in gallery:

This weekend, some of the paintings will be returned in a repatriation ceremony in Port Alberni.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Globe and Mail

8 of 8

Interact with The Globe