{{Short description|Canadian painter (1928–2016)}} {{Infobox artist | bgcolour = | name = Joan Balzar | image = | imagesize = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Wilma Joan King | birth_date = {{birth date|1928|11|8}} | birth_place = Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada | death_date = {{death date and age|2016|1|16|1928|11|8}} | death_place = North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada | nationality = | field = abstract painter | spouse = {{marriage|Roman Balzar|1950}}; Alexander Cotter | training = Vancouver School of Art | movement = | works = | patrons = | influenced by = | influenced = | awards = | elected = | website = }}

'''Joan Balzar''' (November 8, 1928 – January 16, 2016) was a Canadian artist, known for her vividly coloured hard-edged abstract paintings, which sometimes included metallic powders or neon tubing.

== Biography == Joan Balzar was born Wilma Joan King in Vancouver, British Columbia and raised in Victoria by parents Wilfred and Mae King.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Weder|first1=Adele|title=Joan Balzar: Abstract painter stood out in '60s West Coast art scene|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/art-and-architecture/joan-balzar-abstract-painter-stood-out-in-60s-west-coast-art-scene/article28734094/|website=The Globe and Mail|date=11 February 2016 |access-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160328103613/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/art-and-architecture/joan-balzar-abstract-painter-stood-out-in-60s-west-coast-art-scene/article28734094/|archive-date=28 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> She was married in 1950 to Roman Balzar, an engineer; the marriage lasted for 22 years, and she continued to be known professionally as Joan Balzar throughout her life. Through her husband, Balzar became interested in science, structures, and technology, and gained easy access to the many industrial materials, such as metallic powders, that made their way into her painting techniques.<ref name=":1 " >{{Cite book |last=Jeffries |first=Bill |title=Joan Balzar : Vancouver orbital. |date=2011 |others=Simon Fraser University. Gallery |isbn=978-0-9868581-0-9 |location=Burnaby, BC, Canada |oclc=704032376}}</ref><ref name=":2 " >{{Cite news |last=Weder |first=Adele |date=2016-02-11 |title=Joan Balzar: Abstract painter stood out in '60s West Coast art scene |language=en-CA |work=The Globe and Mail |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/art-and-architecture/joan-balzar-abstract-painter-stood-out-in-60s-west-coast-art-scene/article28734094/ |access-date=2022-03-27}}</ref> She married a second time, to Alexander Cotter, taking his name but not using it professionally.

Balzar also taught at a time when almost all post-secondary art teaching in British Columbia was done by men, including at the University of British Columbia, Douglas College, the Vancouver School of Art, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.<ref name=":1 " />

A large number of her works and almost all her documentation was lost in a West Vancouver home and studio fire in 1970.<ref name=":1 " />

Joan Balzar died on January 16, 2016, in North Vancouver.<ref>{{cite web|title=Obituary: Joan (Balzar) Cotter|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/theprovince/obituary.aspx?n=joan-cotter&pid=177454036|website=The Vancouver Province|access-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307101148/http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/theprovince/obituary.aspx?n=joan-cotter&pid=177454036|archive-date=7 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Artistic career == Balzar studied commercial art briefly at the Broadway Edison School in Seattle, Washington. She graduated with honours from the Vancouver School of Art in 1958, where she studied with Jack Shadbolt, Joseph Plaskett, Don Jarvis, and Peter Aspell.<ref name=":2 " /> After graduation, she attended the Painter's Workshop Summer Session provided by the UBC Extension Department. She also studied in Paris, Guatemala, and Mexico.<ref name=":1 " />

Balzar travelled extensively through the 1950s and 60s, including throughout the United States, Singapore, Italy, and France.<ref name=":1 " /> Around 1960, she switched her formally abstract expressionist method to her signature grand scale, high intensity, hard-edge style that reconsidered and contextualized the role of space in art.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2 " /> She explains, "[E]arly in my career I was always involved in scientific discussions, I loved to fly and was obsessed with the idea of space and 'the spatial', as well as being attracted to light and the idea of creating light in my art - not just by the addition of neon tubes, but in the paint itself."<ref name=":1 " /> Balzar experimented with gold leaf, and infusing metallic powders into both the gesso of her underpainting and in the pigments themselves to create reflective, luminescent works that invited people into her 'volumes of light'.<ref name=":1 " /> To further emphasize the radiant quality of her paintings, she, like many other hard-edge painters, also used up to five layers of white undercoat, repeatedly sanded smooth, as a base to her acrylic colours.<ref name=":1 " />

Balzar's use of neon and giant letters, especially the letters X and W, are considered her most powerful and distinctive contributions to the language of painting.<ref name=":1" /> Although many scholars today regard Balzar's work as cutting edge and comparable to such celebrated West Coast artists as Michael Morris, Roy Kiyooka, and Iain Baxter, she struggled to gain the same attention in the 1960s art world that didn't take women artists seriously as their male contemporaries.<ref name=":2 " /> Balzar developed a lifelong friendship with artist Audrey Capel Doray, who also experienced the same industry sexism.<ref name=":2 " />

== Exhibitions == Joan Balzar has been accorded retrospectives at the Belkin Satellite in 2003,<ref>{{cite web|title=Joan Balzar|url=http://www.belkin.ubc.ca/satellite/joan-balzar|website=Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery|access-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308065629/http://www.belkin.ubc.ca/satellite/joan-balzar|archive-date=8 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> the West Vancouver Museum in 2009,<ref>{{cite web|title=Joan Balzar 1960+|url=http://westvancouvermuseum.ca/exhibitions/past_exhibitions_20092015/joan_balzar_1960|website=West Vancouver Museum|access-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308055713/http://westvancouvermuseum.ca/exhibitions/past_exhibitions_20092015/joan_balzar_1960|archive-date=8 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> and Simon Fraser University Gallery in 2011,<ref name=":0 " >{{cite web|title=Joan Balzar: Vancouver Orbital|url=https://www.sfu.ca/galleries/sfu-gallery/past/joan-balzar.html|website=SFU Galleries|access-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308053803/https://www.sfu.ca/galleries/sfu-gallery/past/joan-balzar.html|archive-date=8 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> for which an exhibition catalogue ''Joan Balzar: Vancouver Orbital'' was published.

When she was traveling in Guatemala, she was commissioned to paint in Tikal, and held a solo exhibition at the Biblioteca Nacional, in 1959; the exhibition was reviewed in several local papers, including ''Diario de Centro America'',<ref>{{cite news|title=Joan Balzar Inaugura Interesante Exposicion|publisher=Diario de Centro America|date=26 September 1959}}</ref> and ''Prensa Libre''.<ref>{{cite news|title=Escena por Apuntador|publisher=Prensa Libre|date=28 July 1959}}</ref>

Joan Balzar also exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at commercial galleries, including the New Design Gallery, Bau-Xi Gallery, and Elliott Louis Gallery, and public galleries and groups including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, the West Vancouver Museum, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Federation of Canadian Artists.

Balzar's work ''Perimeter'' was one of more than 160 works included in the Seattle Art Museum's ''Northwest Artists 53rd Annual'' exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum Pavilion in 1967,<ref>{{cite news|last1=Grooms|first1=R. H.|title=Canadian Art Exhibition Worth Trip to Seattle|publisher=Victoria Daily Times|date=18 November 1967}}</ref> and one of five artists awarded a purchase prize;<ref>{{cite book|title=Northwest Artists 53rd Annual|date=1967|publisher=Seattle Art Museum|location=Seattle, Washington|pages=Brochure}}</ref> ''Perimeter'' is now included in the permanent collection at the Seattle Art Museum.<ref>{{cite web|title=Joan Balzar|url=http://www1.seattleartmuseum.org/eMuseum/code/emuseum.asp?style=browse&currentrecord=1&page=search&profile=objects&searchdesc=Joan%20balzar&quicksearch=Joan%20balzar&newvalues=1&newstyle=single&newcurrentrecord=1|website=Collections - Seattle Art Museum|access-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308055136/http://www1.seattleartmuseum.org/eMuseum/code/emuseum.asp?style=browse&currentrecord=1&page=search&profile=objects&searchdesc=Joan%20balzar&quicksearch=Joan%20balzar&newvalues=1&newstyle=single&newcurrentrecord=1|archive-date=8 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

Her painting ''Yellow X'' was included in ''Focus '69'' at the Bau-Xi Gallery, and was recognized by critic Charlotte Townsend-Gault as "one of the best pieces in the show", and by critic Joan Lowndes as "the smasher of the show". ''Yellow X'' was later borrowed by the Vancouver Art Gallery for their exhibition "Vancouver 1965-75" in 1995, and was subsequently purchased for the Gallery's permanent collection in 1996; it was exhibited again in ''PAINT'',<ref>{{cite web|title=Paint: 7 New Painters + BC Painters Since the 1960s|url=http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/media_room/pdf/PAINT_Release.pdf|website=Vancouver Art Gallery|access-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170217134747/http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/media_room/pdf/PAINT_Release.pdf|archive-date=17 February 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> and reproduced in the catalogue ''Paint: A Psychedelic Primer''.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Szewczyk|first1=Monika|title=Paint: A Psychedelic Primer|date=2006|publisher=Vancouver Art Gallery|location=Vancouver|display-authors=etal}}</ref>

Her work was included in ''Idyll'' at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in 2008,<ref>{{cite web|title=Idyll: Three Exhibitions|url=http://belkin.ubc.ca/past/idyll|website=Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery|access-date=7 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308061434/http://belkin.ubc.ca/past/idyll|archive-date=8 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> and she participated in an artist talk with Audrey Capel Doray, moderated by artist and curator Lorna Brown.<ref>{{cite web|title=Audrey Capel Doray and Joan Balzar in Conversation with Lorna Brown|url=http://www.belkin.ubc.ca/events/capel-doray-and-balzar|website=Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery|access-date=7 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923183343/http://www.belkin.ubc.ca/events/capel-doray-and-balzar|archive-date=23 September 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Collections == Joan Balzar's work is found in numerous public and private collections in Canada and in the United States, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the University of Alberta, Simon Fraser University, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Toronto Dominion Bank, the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery<ref>{{cite web|title=Joan Balzar|url=http://belkin.pastperfectonline.com/creator/52517C38-07E8-4266-AE67-335453108460|website=Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery - Collection|access-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170217134814/http://belkin.pastperfectonline.com/creator/52517C38-07E8-4266-AE67-335453108460|archive-date=17 February 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> at the University of British Columbia, the West Vancouver Museum<ref>{{cite web|title=Our Collection|url=http://westvancouvermuseum.ca/collection|website=West Vancouver Museum|access-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160314223107/http://westvancouvermuseum.ca/collection|archive-date=14 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> and the Seattle Art Museum,<ref>{{cite web|title=Joan Balzar|url=http://www1.seattleartmuseum.org/eMuseum/code/emuseum.asp?style=browse&currentrecord=1&page=search&profile=objects&searchdesc=Joan%20balzar&quicksearch=Joan%20balzar&newvalues=1&newstyle=single&newcurrentrecord=1|website=Seattle Art Museum - Collections|access-date=6 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308055136/http://www1.seattleartmuseum.org/eMuseum/code/emuseum.asp?style=browse&currentrecord=1&page=search&profile=objects&searchdesc=Joan%20balzar&quicksearch=Joan%20balzar&newvalues=1&newstyle=single&newcurrentrecord=1|archive-date=8 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> as well as the Antigua Museum in Guatemala.<ref name=":1 " />

== Bibliography == *Jeffries, Bill. ''Joan Balzar: Vancouver Orbital''. Burnaby: Simon Fraser University Gallery, 2011. {{ISBN|978-0-9868581-0-9}} *Szewczyk, Monika, et al. ''Paint: A Psychedelic Primer''. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2006. {{ISBN|978-1895442618}}

== References == {{reflist|30em}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Balzar, Joan}} Category:1928 births Category:2016 deaths Category:Artists from Vancouver Category:Canadian women artists Category:Canadian painters Category:Canadian women painters