Painting Trauma: The Story of Heinz Inlander (1925-83)

Fragments of experience can be brought together by colour and shape, form and canvas, but also by craft and an intense awareness of painting as one of the foundations upon which humans build their understanding of the cultures and environments they inhabit. For Austrian-born Henry (born Heinz) Inlander, who settled in England in 1938, paintings of landscapes brought the richness of the physical world into contact with human vision, memory and the imagination. It was also his way of exploring the trauma of his family history, especially the loss of family in the Holocaust.

Henry Inlander painted the eruption of the real world onto the canvas, and this is best exemplified by his early drawings and paintings which explored everything from the textures of trees to the shape of a mountain against the sky. As an artist he was obsessed by the transformative power of art and by an inner impulse that made it impossible to live without creating, imagining and recreating the world that he loved.

Dr. Ron Burnett, Inlander’s nephew, was born in London. He was President and Vice-Chancellor of Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver, from 1996-2018 and is now its President Emeritus. He is a recipient of the Order of Canada as well as the Order of British Columbia and has been recognized with a Knighthood by the French Government. He is the author of five books (including Explorations in Film Theory and How Images Think) and over one hundred and fifty articles.

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