Max Maynard

Max Maynard was born in 1903 in India to missionary parents who moved to Victoria in 1912. Here he soon distinguished himself and as a young man was a member of an intellectual circle that included Jack Shadbolt, Roy Daniells and Fred Brand. Maynard was largely self-taught as an artist and his best work owes a large debt to the Group of Seven and Emily Carr. Both Shadbolt and Maynard used to visit and learned from the mature Carr until she threw them out with the accusation that they were stealing her artistic ideas.

Maynard left an important legacy in BC’s art history both through his work at the Vancouver Art Gallery, his championing of the modernist cause and his distinctive paintings from the 30’s and 40’s. The artist also enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a professor of English at the University of New Hampshire where he taught until his retirement in 1973. He returned to Victoria in 1978 and died here in 1982.