![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/EJH_01_Ed20Hughes20painting20outdoors_1944_Photo20by20Fern20Hughes-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a>While the film, which is screening at AGGV until Sunday, September 6, spends much of its 80-minute runtime focusing on Hughes\u2019 training as a painter and the struggle of finding purchase in the art world in the depression era\u2014during which time people considered anything not necessary for survival a frivolity and a waste of money\u2014it gives due diligence to other aspects of Hughes\u2019 life as well. The narrative takes the time to explore the familial tragedies Hughes and his wife Fern struggled through, his constant search for solitude, and the brutal shock of going to the trenches of war as a government-mandated observer, to name just a few.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Edward John Hughes was born in 1913 in North Vancouver; he grew up in Nanaimo before training as an artist at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts under the encouraging guidance of two members of the much-lauded Group of Seven, Frederick Varley and Lawren Harris. When World War II broke out in Europe, Hughes enlisted as a war artist, painting vivid works of military life during wartime. During this time, he developed his own unique style, imbued with the dreamlike quality of Henri Rousseau and the bold, vivid colours and chiaroscuro of Emily Carr, as well as his singular ability to paint raw emotion into life on the canvas.<\/p>\n He was eventually discharged and briefly made a home in Victoria before ultimately settling in nearby Shawnigan Lake with Fern, finally securing the quietude he had long sought. There, he painted idyllic images of the lakefront and the ocean at nearby Cowichan Bay.<\/p>\n As his reputation grew, his paintings joined the collections of galleries as far away as Montreal, eventually being commissioned by the Canadian Pacific Railway to paint murals on the interior walls of their transcontinental trains, as well as being commissioned to travel to San Francisco and depict British Columbian life in murals at the 1938 World\u2019s Fair.<\/p>\n After this storied life was brought forth in documentary form and delivered to the public by Strom, interest in Hughes\u2019 art surged, and one of his paintings, Entrance to Howe Sound<\/i>, sold just weeks later on November 29, 2025, at auction for $4.8 million, approximately double what his paintings had fetched previously.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This sale was soon supplanted as most expensive Hughes painting by the May 2026 acquisition at auction of Coastal Boats Near Sidney, BC<\/i> by a private collector for $5.7 million. It\u2019s the most expensive painting ever sold by a BC artist, as well as the fourth-most-expensive piece of Canadian art to be sold at an auction.<\/p>\n Beautiful, yet produced in such a way as to be accessible to laymen of the art world, The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes<\/i> is well worth taking the time to see, and you can also scope an E.J. Hughes original, Steamer Arriving at Old Wharf, Nanaimo<\/i> while you\u2019re at the gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Art depicting the rugged west coast of Canada in all its boreal rainforest beauty has been thrust into the public eye by a recent documentary chronicling the life of one of British Columbia\u2019s most cherished painters. The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes premiered at the 2025 Vancouver International Film Festival, shining light on the life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[357,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-august-5-2026","category-arts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t