Fondo SC639 - Flemming Jørgensen fonds

Flemming Jørgensen is known as an abstract minimalist painter, printmaker and teacher around Victoria, British Columbia. Robert Amos expressed, “he is a classicist, for whom form speaks louder than content.” His works are in the public collections of galleries across Canada. He had local, national, and international solo and group exhibitions in Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, New York, Copenhagen, Switzerland, France, England and Sao Paulo, Brazil. He frequently had solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Backroom Gallery, Kyle’s Gallery, the Fran Willis Gallery, and the North Park Gallery in Victoria. Additionally, he exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy of Art and the Canadian Painters, Etchers and Engravers Society.

Flemming Jørgensen was born May 29, 1934, in Aalborg, Denmark. He completed a four-year apprenticeship as a window designer and attended a night school program for visual arts before leaving Denmark at age twenty-two. In 1956 he immigrated to Victoria, British Columbia, where his first job was as a window designer for Eaton’s department store. At Eaton’s, he worked with artist Herbert Siebner’s wife, Hannelore, which led to the two artists meeting in 1957. From 1958 to 1961 he studied “commercial art” with Herbert Siebner and then began pursuing art full time. From the beginning of his career, Jørgensen’s work was well regarded: In 1959, Moncrieff Williamson, an art critic, titled his review “’Two-Man Show Reveals Exceptional Promise.’”

Circa 1960 Jørgensen joined the Victoria-based Point Group, an artist group founded by Siebner. Until 1962, the group met and exhibited in a Fort Street Danish furniture store owned by Don Adams, which was later Sushan and Joseph Egoyan’s Furniture Showroom and Ego Interiors. Other Point Group members included: Nita Forrest, Richard Ciccimarra, William West, Robert De Castro, Elza Mayhew, Molly Privett, Duncan de Kergommeaux, Michael Morris, Virginia Lewis, and Sylvia Sutton. In 1964, Jørgensen won a purchase award at a Winnipeg Show and first prize at the Montreal Spring Exhibition for his work Spring Morning. After only a few years living in Victoria and working as an artist he was exhibiting on his own and in group shows.

Jørgensen was an active member of the artistic community of Victoria. In 1964, he donated works to raise money for the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. In the same year, he ran a series of night workshops at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria on “Art and the Figure,” and in 1965 co-taught an adult painting class twice a week with artist Arnold Burrell. During this time, his work was nominated and purchased for the Vincent Price collection that toured in Canada and the United States of America. In 1967, Jørgensen travelled to Denmark and Spain, producing works and a well-reviewed exhibition by the Daily Colonist. In 1968, Jørgensen took graphic design work as an assistant to Jean Jacques André. One of the projects he worked on was letterheads and layouts for the B.C. provincial museum. He also received several Canada Council grants. He also taught in the summers at the University of Victoria in the 1970s.

Jørgensen won a number of awards during the 1970s for painted and printed works. He won a Graphics Prize from the Vancouver Jury Show and the G.A. Reid Memorial Award from the Canadian Etchers & Engravers in 1970; a painting prize from the Vancouver Island Jury Show; a purchase award from the Kingston Spring Exhibition in 1972; and a purchase award from the Art Gallery of Brant Ontario in 1974. He became an elected associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1973. In the same year, Jørgensen travelled to Greece with prominent B.C. artist Toni Onley. Continuing in his community involvement, he assisted Peter Gazeley in selecting B.C. artworks to hang in Greater Victoria restaurants in 1973; and in 1975 his works were selected as a part of the BC government’s art lending program to government offices, selected by the Provincial Co-Ordinator of Art, J.C.S. Wilkinson. In 1978, Jørgensen joined the faculty of the Victoria College of Art, where he worked with James Gordaneer, Jack Wise, Bill Porteous and Joe Kyle.

Jørgensen’s art and teaching career continued to grow in the 1980s. In 1981, he left the Victoria College of Art and took a teaching position at Pearson College. Three years later, he co-founded the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts (M.I.S.S.A) with ceramist Robin Hopper. Other initial instructors included Cheryl Samuel, Carole Sabiston and Rona Murray. Jørgensen served on the Metchosin Board of Directors until 1996. By 1985, Jørgensen had exhibited his work in over sixty shows.

After ten years of teaching at Pearson College, Jørgensen took an early retirement. And at age sixty-four in 1998, Jørgensen received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts (DFA) from the University of Victoria.

In 2002 he moved to San Paulo, Brazil where he held five solo exhibits and created new works. When Jørgensen returned to Victoria in 2007, he resumed his involvement in the Victoria art scene and donated artworks to raise money for the Vancouver Island School of Art for a print program. A year later, he donated more works to raise funds for the Abkhazi Garden, a heritage garden operated by the Land Conservancy in Victoria. Flemming Jørgensen died March 23, 2009, in Victoria at age 74. He has two daughters Meredith and Selina.