Buffalo Magazine, September 1965
Article by Gordon S. Smith
There’s a man named Sydney Montague now gathering material in California who is due back in our city any time now.
There are those who regard him as an odd-ball, as are most spectacular artists. Most likely we do not agree with what he paints. But then, we all do not take to everything Pablo Picasso produces, or all of the carvings by Henry Moore. It could be that Montague may some day be recognized with these greats. It could be! But then thats up to the public.
Montague was weaned on art in the Chelsea playpens of London. He painted before his first hair-cut, had bull sessions with the late Augustus John at the Six Bells, and found time and a corner in the British Navy during World War II to whip off portraits of his shipmates. his forte is as a fast and fiery painter of impressionistic water scenes.
He works on a canvas without an apparent start or finish. It is during this warm-up -- collecting rags and oils and tuning the hi-fi -- that the canvas commences to reflect the image of days of meditation. It is not that he is a furious painter, though he may hold six brushes at one time, with left and right arms working ambidextrously ... it is that the image appears uncannily fast, without beginning or ending.
The time for him to work on an impression is when beads of perspiration begin to trickle down his neck. Until then he sits out of the calm: becalmed, meditating, contemplating, looking, collecting, discarding the chaff. The his pulse quickens. It is the time! Speed is essential. The pace does not remain for long. Fifty minutes, sometimes an hour, and a 3-by-5 ft. canvas is finished.
He keeps his paintings before the public eye at every opportunity. He exhibits in as many art shows as time will permit. At the Allentown Outdoor Art Festival of 1964, he took first place in realist oils, and second in abstract oils.
Buffalo missed him in 1965; San Francisco was keeping him busy. Missed too, were his one-man shows: Larken Estate Eden: Lower Level Gallery; Coffee Encores; Hotel Buffalo; North Park Art Theater. His Canadian followers missed him, too, at the Little Gallery, Village Art Gallery and Sobot Gallery -- all in Toronto. Undoubtedly, members of the Towne Arts Guild of Tonawanda, to which he belongs, also miss him.
At one time he was employed at Spaulding Fibre Co. as an electrician, where he caused his colleagues much comment. The April, 1961, issue of the Spaulding Spotlight, for instance, had this to say: “There’s the story of the abstract painter who was robbed. In order to assist the police, he drew a sketch of the robber. The police rounded up a TV aerial, three can openers, a hearse and two pairs of boots ...” He takes the leg-pulling in stride.
But when that man named Montague gets back to our city, he should be nailed down here for all time. He’s good for Buffalo -- in the arts.
Harbor by Night
