To view image click on "Access Content Now" above This drawing by Robert Vincent captures a streetscape in Lumsden, a small town situated just north of Regina. The drawing is visually anchored by the depiction of a wooden window-frame on the bottom and side of the image. The high point-of-view suggests that Vincent drew this scene while looking out from an upper-floor window, onto Lumsden’s business district. Prominent in this image is the Bank of Canada building, now home to Waterfront Press Regional newspaper. The two, irregularly-shaped buildings in the background are grain elevators, buildings that store wheat and other grains for shipping by rail. During the process of colonization in Southern Saskatchewan, the government of Canada displaced Indigenous peoples from their lands and encouraged settlers to develop the prairie into farmland. At the same time, a network of rural communities was established with train stations, banks, post offices, and grain elevators every few miles. As the tallest buildings in the horizon, grain elevators became a popular subject in prairie landscape paintings. What makes this drawing stand out is Vincent’s use of an unusual point of view in his composition. Robert Vincent (1908 – 1984) immigrated from Newcastle-on-Tyne in England to Russell, Manitoba in 1927. He served in the British Army during World War II, and as a member of the Royal Engineers Expeditionary Force, he taught drawing to army engineers. Returning to Canada in 1947, Vincent settled in Saskatoon and worked as a construction worker and field engineer with the Trans-Canada Highway development. Though primarily self-taught as an artist, Vincent was an active member of the Saskatoon arts community, and his work was exhibited regularly in Western Canada. He created art with a diverse range of subject matter, from precisely drafted industrial landscapes to more naïve wilderness studies, animal and figurative work, and wood carving. His artwork is held in provincial collections, including MacKenzie Art Gallery, Saskatchewan Arts Board, University of Saskatchewan, ReMai Modern (formerly Mendel Art Gallery), and Dunlop Art Gallery. Vincent’s work was exhibited at Dunlop Art Gallery in 1974, with the work of landscape artist, Greg Hardy
