B. C. Binning

Bertram Charles Binning (10 February 1909 in Medicine Hat, Alberta – 16 March 1976 in Vancouver, British Columbia), popularly known as B. C. Binning, was a leading Canadian artist. In 1949, when he was teaching at the Vancouver School of Art (today's Emily Carr University of Art and Design,) he was invited by Fred Lasserre, the first director of the School of Architecture at The University of British Columbia (U.B.C.) to come and teach art to the architecture students. Binning, from a family of architects himself, taught that art, architecture and life are intimately connected.

Binning invited Richard Neutra, one of the leading architects in the Modernism movement in California, to lecture in Vancouver in 1949 and 1953. He and his culturally aware wife Jessie (Wyllie) Binning (1906–2007) provided many opportunities in their home for artist, writers and architects to mingle.

Bert and Jessie Binning fostered close ties with the most recognized figures in art in Vancouver. They were friends with Lawren Harris and his wife, artist Bess Harris. Those in his academic circle of intimates from art school were Gordon A. Smith and his wife Marion Smith, Orville Fisher, Fred Amess, John Koerner, Jack Shadbolt and his wife Doris Shadbolt, Lionel Thomas, and also Bruno Bobak and his wife Molly Lamb Bobak. It was an exciting time in the world art scene too. The oppressive constraints of Victorian attitudes toward art and architecture were being thrown off. In Europe it was the time of Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and the De Stijl movements.

In Binning's personal artistic practice he revealed his lifestyle. Known as an excellent draughtsman, he recorded his experiences in intricate line drawings: a detailed remembrance of an unusual hotel room, studies of peaceful-looking female figures, or an architectural drawing of a street in Vancouver. The drawings exude humour and love: a friend cutting a dog's hair, a picnic view from a high perch, self-portraits of self-portraits. Innovative and intelligent, his hospitality to students, colleagues and world figures alike made him a well-loved professor.

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