Roy Kiyooka
In an auction lot I won at the start of the pandemic there were a large number of covers and cards addressed to the Vancouver Art Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia. Previously, I did a quick posts on one of the interesting exhibition cards on Enzo Esposito last year and in 2021 on Harold Cohen.
Todays post features a card sent from the Victoria National Gallery to the Vancouver Art Gallery on the 9th of January, 1978.
The card is franked with a 10¢ Star Saphire, sg 552a and a 15¢ Harvester, sg 525 both with the perforated intials V G. On the 15¢ stamp the perforated initials are inverted. The two stamps make up the 25¢ rate for letter mail up to 10 grams in effect from September 1, 1975 to July 1, 1978.
The card is an acknowledgment of receiving the exhibition catalogue of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Kiyooka’s exhibition.
Roy Kenzie Kiyooka was a second generation Japanese Canadian (or Nisei) Artist who was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan on January 18, 1926. He attended the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and Art between 1946 – 1949. In 1955 he attended the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He participated in the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops (run by the University of Saskatchewan) from 1957 and 1959.
In 1976 he started teaching at the Regina College of Art. He taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design from 1971 to 1972 and at the University of British Columbia in the Fine Arts Department between 1973 and 1991. He was named to the Order of Canada in 1978. Kiyooka died in 1974 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Sources:
Australian Decimal Postal Rates 1973-1982: Overseas Airmail Rates. (2020). Torsten Weller, Abacus Auctions https://www.abacusauctions.com.au/articles/Australian%20Decimal%20Postal%20Rates_1973-82_overseas_airmail.pdf
Roy Kiyooka. (2023, April 4). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Kiyooka
Leclerc, D. (2013). Roy Kiyooka. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/roy-kiyooka