My first oil painting in Canada - painted to celebrate my admission as a full-time student at Ecole-des-Beaux Arts in Montreal. The painting was done in an afternoon, from life, by using a mirror. I was so eager to show the freshly painted work that I rode the building's elevator up and down for a least half an hour, hopeful that somebody would happen to enter and ask questions about the painting. But not one person came.

The painting shows no awareness of colour. I became interested in the theories of colour at the Ecole. This painting, with some other paintings of mine, was shown at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1952, in a show featuring immigrant artists of European descent.

-Arvid Grants

Arvid Grants (Today)