WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SELL OUT?: Reflections on the Sell Out? exhibit at the Ottawa Art Gallery

This article was published in The Mindful Word journal of engaged living (http://www.themindfulword.org)

People often use the term “sell out” in reference to artistic works—generally to suggest an artist has compromised their originality to gain money or fame. The concept of selling out is the central theme of the Ottawa Art Gallery’s current exhibit “Sell Out?” The exhibit features the commercial work of various well-known Canadian visual artists of the past, including members of the Group of Seven and Emily Carr, a close associate of the group. The gallery’s Senior Curator, Catherine Sinclair, has chosen a selection of commercial work to display, leaving it up to viewers to decide whether they feel the artists sold out or not.

The Group of Seven, as well as creating commercial works, also created non-commercial oil paintings of Canadian landscapes throughout their careers. They are still renowned for these, but they, along with the other artists featured in the exhibit, also participated quite extensively in commercial artwork, such as book illustration. They also partnered with the Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway to promote rail travel throughout the country. They did this by producing enticing landscape scenes to lure people to Canada’s relatively unexplored areas. Eventually, some of the members went so far as to create brochures and posters promoting the railways and the tourist attractions located along their lengths. One well-known poster is Bon Echo Inn, pictured below, created by A.Y. Jackson. The group, especially A.J. Casson and Franklin Carmichael, also created advertisements and cartoons for established Canadian printing companies and in the 1920s, crafted a series of Christmas cards for Rous & Mann, Ltd.

Another project the Group of Seven took on, as did many other Canadian artists, was creating silk-screened paintings of Canadian landscapes, which were displayed at military bases to remind soldiers of home. One of the most acclaimed paintings of this type is Evening, Nipigon River (pictured at the top of this page), created by Yvonne McKague Housser.

So, does all this commercialism mean that the Canadian artists in question were sell-outs? Considering the commonly-used definition of selling out, this does not seem to be the case. If you were to compare the Group of Seven’s commercial art to their non-commercial art, you would notice no significant change in style. All of their commercial art focuses on Canadian landscapes or Canadian people doing traditionally Canadian things, as their non-commercial art does. The only real difference between their commercial and non-commercial art is that promotional text has been added to some of the commercial images. If someone who doesn’t have a great deal of knowledge about the Group of Seven was to view a commercial print that doesn’t contain any wording, they may not be able to determine whether the print is commercial or non-commercial.

Some people believe that artists must not participate in commercial ventures at all, if they wish to remain authentic and avoid selling out. This is a bit of an unrealistic expectation—artists need to make a living just as much as anyone else does. Artists just need to find the golden mean between generating popularity and revenue and engaging in purely authentic personal expression. Brice Salek, a modern multimedia artist recently featured in The Mindful Word, always strives to create projects that represent his inner thoughts and ideas, but that can also enhance people’s lives.

Often, commercialism allows for increased public exposure. After all, if the Canadian artists featured within the “Sell Out?” exhibit did not engage in commercial work, they may not have become as well-known, and both landscape art enthusiasts and the general public would be missing out if they were unable to view their great pieces of work today. Participation in commercial projects does not, in all cases, equate with a lack of integrity. In fact, commercial projects often act as opportunities for artists to express themselves quite authentically within realms they would not have been able to access if they had remained strictly non-commercial in scope. While some artists do “sell out” by drastically changing their ideas and styles to suit the companies paying them for their work, neither the Group of Seven nor the other artists featured in the “Sell Out?” exhibit are of that kind.

Do you think that some artists focus too much on commercial projects? How would you define an artist who has sold out?

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