Randolph Stanley Hewton’s place in 20th-century Canadian painting is
secure enough to merit a mention in survey texts on Canadian art history
and an entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia, but it is fair to say that he
is unknown to the general public, in spite of links to the Group of
Seven via the friendship and influence of A.Y. Jackson, and the
impressionism that characterized his early work in Montreal.

This exhibition catalogue, which focuses on Hewton’s work from 1910
to the 1940s, suggests some causes for this undeserved relative
obscurity.

Forty-two years after his death, curator Victoria Baker’s
reassessment of Hewton’s work in the artistic context of the interwar
years is long overdue. At only 56 pages, but with 14 full-page
reproductions (half of them in colour), this catalogue is by far the
most substantial publication on Hewton to date, and should be in all
serious collections on Canadian art.