Elevated view from Ellis Hall looking southeast at St. Andrew's College after completion of addition. Roads, cars, trees, and Memorial Gates in foreground. College Drive and residential area visible in background.

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.

Dr. Kenneth J. McCallum, professor and head, Department of Chemistry, stands beside equipment located at the Saskatchewan Research Council that is used for carbon 14 radioactive dating.

Bio/historical note: The Carbon 14 radioactive method of determining the ages of substances is carried out on the campus by the Saskatchewan Research Council, and is the only one in Canada. One of the experiments showed there were Indigenous peoples in British Columbia more than 8000 years ago. The method was applied by scientists outside Canada to confirm the age of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls (2000 years old).

Image of audience seated and standing during the sod turning of the Linear Accelerator Building. University buildings in background; outdoor scene.

Bio/Historical Note: The building of the Linear Accelerator (Linac) was not a random event but rather the result of a series of developments on campus. The Department of Physics had over the previous decades built a reputation for experimentation and innovation. The post-war period saw the University of Saskatchewan in the forefront of nuclear physics in Canada. In 1948, Canada’s first betatron (and the world’s first used in the treatment of cancer) was installed on campus. It was used for research programs in nuclear physics, radiation chemistry, cancer therapy and radiation biology. Next the world’s first non-commercial cobalt-60 therapy unit for the treatment of cancer was officially opened in 1951. With this unit research was undertaken in the areas of radiological physics, radiation chemistry and the effects of high energy radiation on plants and animals. When the construction of the Linear Accelerator was announced in the fall of 1961, it was portrayed as the next logical step on the University’s research path. Varian Associates, Palo Alto, California, designed and built the accelerator with Poole Construction of Saskatoon employed as the general contractor. The 80 foot electron accelerator tube was to create energy six times that of the betatron. The cost of the $1,750,000 facility was split between the National Research Council and the University of Saskatchewan with the NRC meeting the cost of the equipment and the University assuming the costs of the building. The official opening in early November of 1964 was more than just a few speeches and the cutting of a ribbon. It was a physics-fest, with 75 visiting scientist from around the world in attendance presenting papers and giving lectures over the period of several days. Three eminent physicists were granted honorary degrees at the fall convocation and hundreds of people showed up for the public open house. For three decades the Linac has served the campus research community and will continue to do so as it has become incorporated into the Canadian Light Source synchrotron.

View of model of Marquis Hall; Qu'Appelle Hall Addition in background.

View looking north of the Poultry Science Building; trees and road in foreground.

Standing in front of the Unit van are l to r: Dr. D.J. Cotton, Dr. James A. Dosman, and Dr. B.A. Graham. All are Assistant Professors of Medicine. Likely taken outside of University Hospital.

P.M. (Michael) Swan, Head, Department of Greek and Roman Studies, and Nicholas Gyenes, Professor Emeritus of Art, look at an exhibit at the official opening of the Museum of Antiquities. 'Hermes of Praxiteles' is in background.

Bio/Historical Note: The Museum of Antiquities is an archaeological museum at the University of Saskatchewan. It opened in 1974 to provide an opportunity to study ancient works. The Museum currently features a variety of Greek and Roman sculpture, and contains a collection of Near Eastern, Egyptian, Byzantine, Islamic and Medieval art. It is one of only a handful of museums of its kind in Canada. The project which became the “Museum of Antiquities” began in 1974. It was initiated by ancient history historian Michael Swan and art historian Nicholas Gyenes, both professors of the University of Saskatchewan. The collection began with a small group of replicas purchased from the Louvre, but grew to include replicas from other museums and workshops, as well as original artifacts. The collection grew through the generosity of the University and private benefactors until, in 1981, new facilities in the Murray Library were acquired, the collection was officially opened as the “Museum of Antiquities”, and Catherine Gunderson became the first curator and director of the museum. In 2005, the ever-expanding Museum moved to a larger space in the newly renovated College Building now known as the Peter MacKinnon Building. Tracene Harvey became director in 2009. The long-term aim of the Museum is to offer a reliable and critical account of the artistic accomplishments of major Western civilizations and epochs from approximately 3000 BC to 1500 CE. The first step in this endeavor was the presentation of a dependable picture of ancient Greco-Roman sculptural art, as it has heavily influenced much later Western art. The present collection focuses on items from the Middle Helladic (c. 1500 BCE) to the Late Antique (c. 500 CE) period and now has expanded to include pieces from the ancient Near East and ancient Egypt. The Museum's pieces mainly consist of plaster cast replicas, making the collection one of a few cast collections in Canada, and the only one in Saskatchewan. The replicas in the Museum are, in general, not crafted from the same material as the original. Most are casts of plaster or resin, not marble or bronze, for reasons of expense and weight. The replicas by large workshops—such as those at the Louvre, Paris, the British Museum, London, and the Gipsformerei der Staatlichen Museen, Berlin—are created from moulds taken directly from the original pieces. They therefore replicate exactly any damage borne by the original. After the plaster cast is unmoulded, it is painted and given a surface finish which matches the original. The collection has replicas of several famous pieces, such as the Rosetta Stone and the Venus de Milo. The collection features original sculpture such as the 17th century portrait of Hannibal. Other original pieces include a storage amphora, a false door and a substantial collection of ancient glass.

Looking northeast at WCVM; trees in foreground.

Summer scene looking south of Qu'Appelle Hall, the men's residence. Sidewalk and lamp post in foreground.

John G. Diefenbaker, University Chancellor, looks down at papers as he presides at Convocation held at Centennial Auditorium.

Inscription on photograph 21st Anniversary April 2, 1928 Humboldt, Sask.

Head and shoulders image of Ruth Elizabeth Bilson, B.A., M.A., winner of the Brown Prize in Law and the Carswell Prize.

Wayne Lautt, Professor, Department of Physiology, adjusts blood flow in a life-support system for an isolated animal liver.

View looking north of Kirk Hall (School of Agriculture), with trees in front of building. Unfinished landscaping in foreground.