Robert Pope Archive

The first page of a new sketchbook is devoted to a project for a friend, the cover illustration to Joanne Light’s book, Love Poems. This is the first of many collaborations with Joanne. Joanne encouraged Robert to pursue the theme

Without the title, Addiction, the meaning of this image might be unclear. Lovers seen through, imprisoned in a screen of poppies, the figures are obsessed with their feelings.

Relationships, like elevators, go up and down. There were many studies for this painting about the break-up of a relationship. In the first studies, the couple face one another. In the finished painting, the man and woman face in the

An enormous wave crashes between a couple. The water affirms their sense of  exhilaration, passion, adventure. The painting is from a series based on Elizabeth Smart’s experimental novel, By Grand Central Station I Sat down and Wept. Here is a sample

Robert grew up in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, a farming district famous for its apple orchards. Orchard features a landscape that is charged with energy and tension. The image of love unfolding suggests both anxiety and compulsion. There is a

A rare image of happiness and harmony between the lovers. The butterfly’s presence suggests this harmony extends into the natural world, but the “happy spell” may be short lived and, like the delicate butterfly, dash off at any moment. The

Robert loved going to the movies and discussing films with friends afterwards. He was influenced by the look of films, by the cropping and lighting of images. He was fascinated by telling stories through pictures and the psychological effects suggested by

This image looks more like the cover of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, detailing the comic labyrinth of human passion, than an example of the deadpan school of Canadian social realism. The image does have a literary connection, one of a series

Robert portrays his parents, Bill and Isabel, in a car, speeding through an undefined space like astronauts hurtling into the unknown. The couple sit close together. They share a common purpose. That purpose is their journey, which is not a

An unhappy love triangle lies at the heart of the novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Robert based his series “A Seal Upon Thine Heart” on this novel and his images present lover, husband and wife, sometimes all