An honorary degree for Robert Amos
“Art history isn’t all about the distant past: in fact, art history is all around us. If we reflect on and understand the times we live in, we may come to understand ourselves a bit better,” said Amos during his 10-minute talk. “I’m passionate about sharing stories with students, art lovers and the general public and while the internet provides instantaneous global reach to any information we may want to look up, unless we who live and work here create and tell our own local stories, and find a way to preserve and safeguard those for the future, there won’t be anything there for anyone to look up and access. Art is a form of communication . . . and if you find a way to communicate the reality of your own time and place, history will be interested in what you have to say.”
Watch Robert’s convocation address here
(starts at the 20-min mark)
Perfectly timed to this event was the retrospective exhibition, Robert Amos: Painting Victoria, which ran in October at downtown's Madrona Gallery.
This exhibit of 20 paintings not only showcased Victoria over the years but also celebrated the launch of Robert's newest publication Painting Victoria: 50 Years of Memories of Painting a City by the Sea (TouchWood Editions).
Featuring decades of paintings done almost entirely on location, the new book Painting Victoria is a sweeping artistic love letter dating back to 1974, the year he first came to Victoria. Inspired by the local painters and printmakers that came before him, Robert's paintings and sketches offer his whimsical style and with a keen eye for the unique character of the city.
https://touchwoodeditions.com/collections/robert-amos/products/painting-victoria
The British Columbia Review: ‘The Vistas Can Be Breathtaking’
- January 22, 2026: LINK HERE
- “Thank goodness we have the work of Robert Amos, which are cherished chronicles of times and places dear to our hearts. And when we truly appreciate something small and close, perhaps that is the path to understanding much larger ideas and views.“—Christina Johnson-Dean
Robert Amos has published his fifth book about the career of artist E. J. Hughes. E. J. Hughes: Life at the Lake (TouchWood Editions, 120 pages, $25) focusses on his time on Shawnigan Lake, where the famously reclusive artist spent many happy years creating some of his most famous paintings. The book is, as usual, lavishly illustrated and takes readers into the private life of Hughes and his wife Fern, his dealer Max Stern and his friend and biographer Pat Salmon. Within weeks of its publication, this book reached number one of the BC Books bestseller’s list. Available at all the best bookstores now.
The Associates of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria recently invited Robert Amos to make an illustrated presentation on his award-winning book E. J. Hughes: Canadian War Artist.
Adding to the list of awards received by books by Robert Amos, his latest title, E. J. Hughes: Canadian War Artist was chosen as winner of the annual Basil Stuart- Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Book on British Columbia for 2023. This prize recognizes the best scholarly book published on a British Columbia subject by a Canadian author. This prize was established in 2012 to honour the memory of Basil Stuart-Stubbs, whose many accomplishments included serving as the University Librarian at UBC Library and the Director of UBC’s School of Library, Archival and Information Studies.
The prize is administered by UBC Library and the Pacific BookWorld News Society.
In addition, E. J. Hughes: Canadian War Artist also won the gold medal in the History/Biography category in the 2022 PubWest Book Design Awards.
PubWest, the leading association of small and medium-sized book publishers in the Pacific Northwest, recognizes superior design and outstanding production quality of books in 16 categories. The Design Awards winners were judged on typography, jacket and cover design, interior design, format, selection of materials used, and printing and binding production quality.
E. J. Hughes: Canadian War Artist , published by TouchWood Editions, Designer: Lara Minja, Production Manager: Adam Stewart, Printer: 1010
