Leonard and Reva Brooks: Artists in Exile in San Miguel de Allende

425 Pages·2001·48.76 MB·English

by  John Virtue

Leonard and Reva Brooks
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Leonard and Reva Brooks
Artists in Exile in
San Miguel de Allende
J O HN V I R T UE
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
© McGill-Queen's University Press 2001
ISBN 0-7735-2298-0
Legal deposit fourth quarter 2001
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges
the financial support of the Government of
Canada through the Book Publishing Industry
Development Program (BPIDP) for its publishing
activities. It also acknowledges the support of the
Canada Council for the Arts for its publishing
program.
Acknowledgment for permission to reproduce
material can be found on page 390.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in
Publication Data
Virtue, John, 1934
Leonard and Reva Brooks: artists in exile in
San Miguel de Allende
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7735-2298-0
i. Brooks, Leonard, 1911- 2. Brooks, Reva, 1913-
3. Artists - Canada - Biography. I. Title.
ND249.B766V57 2001 709'.2'27i C2001-9OO486-9
To the Virtue family:
Anna, Mark, Laura, and Madeline
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Contents
FOREWORD
Scott Symons
ix
AUTHOR'S NOTE
xv
PART ONE
Beginnings
1
PART TWO
A Career Is Launched
37
PART THREE
The War Years
69
PART FOUR
A Photographer Is Born in Mexico
93
PART FIVE
Trouble in Paradise
119
PART SIX
Disappointments and Difficult Decisions
163
PART SEVEN
A Writer Takes the Stage
181
viii Contents
PART EIGHT
Emotional Strains
221
PART NINE
New Directions
253
PART TEN
No Joking Matter
271
PART ELEVEN
Troubled Travels
289
PART TWELVE
Recognition at Last
313
NOTES
349
CHRONOLOGY
377
EXHIBITIONS
383
BIBLIOGRAPHY
387
INDEX
390
Foreword
The biography of Leonard and Reva Brooks is an adventure story in its own
right. I cannot quickly think of any element it does not contain. Rags to rich-
es, yes, it's there. Deportations, shootouts, spy and CIA factors, all there.
Murders, murder attempts, suicide, the sexual picaresque, marital devotion,
failures, triumphs, all duly accounted for. Not to mention an attendant array
of personalities, non-personalities, life-clowns, and philosophers.
Leonard and Reva Brooks each came of poor, not to say impoverished,
backgrounds. And each received scant education. They ended up hobnobbing
with the nabobs, ambassadors, and other artists as distinguished as them-
selves. The Canadian art scene beat a path to their door in San Miguel de
Allende, Mexico. Dear friends as varied as Marshall McLuhan, Earle Birney,
and the York Wilsons were frequently there.
Not only Canadians, but as well the Mexican art elite recognized them and
sought them out. Siqueiros was a great admirer, as was Gunther Gerzso. And
Mexico, including the Mexican State, recognized their worth long before their
home city of Toronto took real notice of them.
In many ways it can be said that Toronto's neglect of the Brooks made
them! They fled the frequent meanness of spirit in Toronto and settled in San
Miguel de Allende soon after the Second World War, Leonard living off a small
veterans' grant and his wits. Teaching at Bellas Artes, the fine arts school, in
San Miguel.
No, they didn't intend to settle there. But force of circumstances, lack of art
jobs in Canada and the pervasive hostility of the Canadian art scene, kept
them there. To their benefit, and finally to posterity's benefit.
All that is to oversimplify. There is an entire Brooks story and trajectory
prior to their Mexico years. Leonard's time in England, in Spain, travelling
threadbare. Sometimes helped by artists as distinguished as Sir Frank
Brangwyn. A picaresque time, yes, and picturesque, very.
But the core story is the years in San Miguel de Allende, from 1947 to the pres-
ent. Story culminating in San Miguel as Leonardbrooksland. Or as famous cel-
list Gilberto Munguia put it recently: "I consider Leonard to be the inspiration,
the impulse, the catalyst, that set off the marvellous migration of northerners to
San Miguel. Not only did he inspire the art scene but also the music scene ..."