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William Kurelek Mural

Artist William Kurelek contemplates his work - a 32 by 36 foot mural on the inside front wall of the St. Thomas More Chapel.

Bio/Historical Note: William Kurelek, CM (1927-1977) was born in a shack near Whitford, Alberta, north of Edmonton. Kurelek spent most of his boyhood on the family farm in Manitoba. He hated the life and grew up with an increasing sense of alienation at home and at school, and decided in his last year at the University of Manitoba to devote his life to the one talent that brought admiration: his ability to draw. It was after reading Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at university that Kurelek decided to find out if he, too, could become an artist. He tested himself in characteristic fashion, by creating a self-portrait that involved 16 hours of frantic, non-stop painting. As the work neared completion, Kurelek recalled years later, he realized 'the painting had taken over and was directing me. I was an artist. I knew I was an artist.' But Kurelek faced a tortured journey before anyone else accepted him as an artist. He travelled to Toronto in search of an art teacher but left the Ontario College of Art after only a few months and began hitchhiking to Mexico. The artist had been plagued as a young boy by a series of frightening visions and hallucinations, all dealing with pain, suffering, cruelty. While resting under a bridge in Arizona he underwent a vision of a different kind. It was a white-robed figure calling him to be a shepherd. That figure is the someone of Kurelek's autobiography, Someone With Me, published in 1974. Kurelek failed to find an art teacher in Mexico. He returned to Canada and worked as a lumberjack to earn the money for passage to England. But his sense of 'depersonalization, of non-existence' had grown intolerable and he turned himself over to the psychiatric hospital at Maudsley. It was here and in other hospitals that Kurelek finally found himself as a painter. Later, he credited electric shock treatment and his conversion to Catholicism for his reclamation. Kurelek died in Toronto in 1977; he was only 50 years old.

Western College of Veterinary Medicine Building - Official Opening

Note on back: "Dr. Lorne Hepworth, MLA, Weyburn Constituency representing Minister of Agriculture, Province of Saskatchewan, brought greetings at the Official Opening of additions and renovations to the main building of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine". Provincial Minister Rick Folk is at far left, holding papers in right hand.

Western College of Veterinary Medicine Building - Addition - Opening Ceremonies

L.F. Kristjanson (left), University President, declares the new addition open by striking the "WCVM Gavel" on a brick typical of those in the new WCVM Building. N.O. Nielsen, Dean, College of Veterinary Medicine, assists during the official opening of additions and renovations to the main building of the WCVM. Guests seated at left of image; audience and potted plants in foreground. Scene in new students' lounge.

Bio/historical note: The WCVM gavel is made of: a) a wooden handle fashioned from a fir plank taken from the old Veterinary Hygiene building (barn) which stood beside the J.S. Fulton Laboratory. This symbolizes our heritage; b) the head of the gavel is the astragalus bone from a horse (ankle bone). The bone symbolizes the animal world and veterinary medicine; c) the brick symbolizes the new building and things contemporary.

Western College of Veterinary Medicine Building - Addition - Opening Ceremonies

E.M. Hall, University Chancellor, delivers greetings at the official opening of additions and renovations to the main building of the WCVM. N.O. Nielsen, Dean, College of Veterinary Medicine, is seated on dais at far right. Guests seated at left of image; audience and potted plants in foreground. Scene in new students' lounge.

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