Nicholas Hornyansky (Hungarian/Canadian, 1896-1965) ARCA, OSA, CPE, FIAL, ACPS
‘Home of the Colonial Advocate’ [MacKenzie King House, Niagara-on-the-Lake]
With a view of Queenston Heights in the background.
aquatint
(impression): 4 1/8” high x 5 ½” wide
(frame): 8 3/8” high x 10 3/8” wide
Markings: titled and signed in margins; original write-up verso
Condition: Very Good, Ready for Display
For Accuracy: a vintage print it may show expected light signs of age. There is extremely light matt burn in the margins; the image is crisp and the colour bright. It has been reframed well by a previous owner. Ready for Display.
Notes: “The Home of the Colonial Advocate. // THIS THE HOME of the Colonial Advocate, a quite insignificant newspaper and yet it shook the country. Sometimes there is dynamite in newspapers. The gingery, wiry, peppery little Scot, William Lyon MacKenzie, had come from Dundas where he had some connection with the grocery trade, to found a newspaper on the frontier at Queenstown. On May 20, 1824, the first issue came out. That day saw something more than the launching of a newspaper. It was really the launching of a man on a career that was to carry him through storm and battle, insurrection and exile, and at last place him under the shadow of the gallows. He was to come home again after the fires had burned low to end his years in tranquility, and to enjoy at least some of the reforms to which his life and fortune had been devoted. // This building was MacKenzie’s home at Queenston, and, as has been said, the home of the Colonial Advocate, but the paper was printed there for only a few issues. An early Advocate remarked that a contract has been issued to have the first twelve issues printed in another shop for MacKenzie had no printing equipment as yet. The editor assured his readers in the issue of October 7 that it had been half printed at home and half printed in the American Republick, but did not say where. The Advocate of October 14 was the first completely home product. // In the American Republick, but where? Across the river was the Lewiston Sentinel, founded in 1828 by James O. Daley. Of the sentinel and the first fifteen issues of the Advocate one can say they were alike in this: same size page, same five columns to the page; same 48-point caps in the heading; same 24-point old English in the sub-head; same 8-point body type. There seems no reason to doubt that the first fifteen issues came from the presses of the Sentinel. For a month the Advocate was at home, in the building shown in the picture – then came York.” ~ Courtesy, Louis Blake Duff
Artist Biography: HORNYANSKY, Nicholas (Hungarian, Canadian, 1896-1965) ARCA, OSA, CPE, FIAL, ACPS. Born in Budapest, Hungary he worked as a colour mixer in the printing office of his father by the age of 12. STUDIED: Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest, under Prof. Ballo (portrait painting) and Prof. Pasteiner (aesthetics); Graduate Studies in Vienna, Munich, Antwerp and Paris; Simultaneous Colour aquating with Sagnelonge, Etching under Aba-Novak; edition studio in Brussels. INFLUENCES: Van Eyck; Breughel (The Younger); El Greco; Diego Rivera. WORKED: Belgium as an accomplished portrait painter; As part of the School of Hens with Franz Hens doing landscape painting; Worked with Franz henz. EXHIBITED: Grand Salon of Budapest (at age 16); London as a Portrait Painter; teacher Ontario College of Art (1945-1958); Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery (1967); Lionel Clarke Galleries Toronto (1967); The Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery and Museum of Fine Art, Owen Sound, Ontario (1968); California Printmakers; Philadelphia Society of Etchers; Northwest Printmakers (Seattle); American Academy of Design; Prairie Printmakers (Kansas); Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art; Society of American Etchers (New York); Souther Printmakers (Mount Airy); and the American Colour Print Society of Philadelphia.. COLLECTIONS: National Gallery of Canada; Royal Ontario Museum; National Print Collection, Library of Congress; New Mexico Museum (Santa Fe); Pennsylvania Museum of Art (Philadelphia); Musee Plantyn (Antqerp); Hart House, U of T; The John Ross Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library. Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp; Museum Modene, Ghent, Antwerp; Dowage Queen Elizabeth, Belgium; Govenment Collection, London, England; Rothschild Collection, Trink Castle; Exhibited: Toronto (1929); Royal Canadian Academy; Ontario Society of Artists; Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers (1939 onwards); ASSOCIATIONS: Associate Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (1943); Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers & Engravers (Pres. 194301958); American Color Print Society (Philadelphia), and the Ontario Society of Artists, Life Fellow, International Instutute of Arts and Letters. AWARDS: “Fifty Prints Of the Year,” American Federation of Art (1932, 1933); The G. A. Reid Silver Memorial Award (1955); Sterling Trust’s First Purchase Award (CPE); E. A. Klein First Purchase Award (Philadelphia)
