John Cullen Nugent

John Cullen Nugent (1921-2014) was a Canadian artist and educator known primarily for his public art works, often in the form of abstract sculpture.

Early life and education Born and raised in Montreal on 5 January 1921, the young Nugent attended high school in St. Paul, Minnesota before returning to Canada prior to the Second World War and joining the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, training at Regina and Ottawa. Three years later, Nugent joined the Canadian Army, serving in the provost corps in the 1940s.

Following the war, Nugent was discharged and studied art at St John's University (Collegeville, Minnesota), There, he was apprenticed in sculpture and silversmith work with Donald Humphrey, and later obtained additional training after moving to Lumsden, Saskatchewan in 1947.

Nugent attended the Emma Lake Artists' Workshops in the 1950s and 1960s, studying with Jack Shadbolt, Joseph Plaskett, Will Barnet, and Clement Greenberg. He received numerous commissions in the decades following, According to Timothy Long, these works were "simplified, yet expressive": chalices and crucifixes which demonstrated Nugent's interest in modern interpretations of early Christian and Romanesque models.

Turn to abstract sculpture Resistance from the Church hierarchy and from parishioners led to Nugent abandoning his liturgical work in the 1960s. Long describes how Nugent's work differentiates itself from that of others:While often incorporating identifiable parts, such as wheels, his sculpture eludes easy metaphorical readings, instead creating meaning through unexpected combinations of forms and materials. Nugent's work represents an independent strain within Canadian abstract steel sculpture without direct ties to the Emma Lake Artists' Workshops or other western Canadian sculptors. Another public commission is at the National Capital Commission in Ottawa.

John A. Macdonald Memorial (1967)

Local fundraising for a statue in Regina to commemorate the first Prime Minister of Canada began in 1891, though the work did not begin until 1966 after Sonia de Grandmaison was commissioned to do the work. Her statue of John A. Macdonald was cast by Nugent using the "lost wax technique" he learned along with candlemaking, in five pieces, which were then soldered together.

After Macdonald's role in the Canadian Indian residential school system and other dealings became common knowledge in the 2010s, there were calls to remove the statue from its location in Victoria Park. After vandalism and protests at the memorial, the statue was removed in April 2021 and placed into storage.

Louis Riel Memorial (1968)

In the lead-up to the Canadian Centennial in 1967, the Saskatchewan Arts Board recommended that the province should have a new public sculpture. To this end, a competition was announced. along with Nugent's original abstract maquette, where it remains.

No. 1 Northern (1976)

This large steel abstract sculpture is intended as a metaphor for fields of wheat, represented in multi-layer rectangular shapes and painted the "brilliant" yellow of harvest wheat, designed to represent Canada's hardy top grade, red spring wheat hybrid of the same name that dominate the Prairies in the fall. The Agriculture Minister Eugene Whelan called the work "a waste of taxpayers' moneys."

In 1993, the work was quietly moved a second time,

Tolsop (1977) Interested in the three-dimensional forms possible by arranging pieces of surplus steel found at the IPSCO site, Nugent welded a piece that has a very different character when viewed from different angles: while a large convex disc dominates all views, its positioning at 45 degrees "invites the viewer to consider it from other vantage points," so that what initially appears to be a large solid, "flattish" and angled piece "morphs into an airier version" with vertical and horizontal elements of smaller proportions.

Retrospective exhibition and photography In 1983, Nugent's work was the subject of a major retrospective, John Nugent: Modernism in Isolation, organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. Nugent's photography, like his sculpture, was widely collected in Saskatchewan and beyond.

Personal life John Nugent married Florence Keller, and they had five children: At the time of his death he had thirteen grandchildren.

Nugent died on 12 March 2014, predeceased by his wife, Florence, son, David, grandson, Chad, and great-grandson, Caden.