Bart Pragnell

Pragnell studied at the Winnipeg School of Art with Keith Gebhart and L. L. FitzGerald, where he won the Mundell Prize Scholarship, the Banff School of Fine Arts with Middleton and Glyde (received high honors), at the Department of Education in Victoria with W.P. Weston and J.W.G. MacDonald, at the Montreal Art Association (attending lectures by Arthur Lismer), in New York with Hans Hofmann (c.1952), and later in a summer class at the Chicago Art Institute. He lived and worked in Moose Jaw during the summer class at the Chicago Art Institute. He lived and worked in Moose Jaw during the '30s, but remained closely attached to painters in Saskatoon. Pragnell was Head of the first Art Department at Moose Jaw’s Technical High School. He became the general art supervisor for all public and technical schools and colleges in Moose Jaw (1932-39). After service in the RCAF during WWII, when he was a public relations artist, Pragnell taught and worked in Winnipeg, Vermont, and California between 1949 and 1958. While in Winnipeg he was appointed principal of the Winnipeg School of Art; in Lethbridge, Alberta he was the Director and Art Instructor at the Lethbridge Art Centre. He taught at the Lethbridge Sketch Club and in that city’s schools. Pragnell joined the faculty of the University of Alberta in 1963. It is generally thought that Pragnell brought a considerable knowledge of modernism to his teaching and therefore he was among a number of artists who introduced those concepts into Alberta. This can be seen in his own works where he has abstracted the space, worked with broad swathes of color, and monumentalized form. Pragnell was a member of the Art Association of Saskatoon (1937); Moose Jaw Sketch Club (1939); Winnipeg Sketch Club (1928-9); Saskatchewan Provincial Art Association (1938) and the Royal Canadian Academy of Art (1939).