Hewitt Callister is an abstract expressionist painter, teacher, and art critic based outside Montreal. Born in Toronto in 1956, he came of age during the turbulence of the 1960s and the artistic rebellion of the 1970s. Drawn to the raw energy of abstract expressionism, he developed a signature style rooted in heavy impasto and gestural brushwork. Hewitt studied at OCAD but left in the late ’70s to immerse himself in the underground art scenes of Montreal, New York, and Berlin.
After years of exhibiting in alternative and artist-run galleries and resisting the pull of commercialism, Hewitt built a dual career as a painter and a sharp, often contrarian art critic. His writings skewered market-driven trends, institutional groupthink, and the art world’s obsession with spectacle over substance. Unapologetically old-school, he believes that painting should be about presence, struggle, and truth—not branding.
Hewitt lives in a rural studio close to Montreal filled with half-finished canvases, stacks of old art books, and the remnants of decades spent in the trenches of painting. He rarely attends art-world events, preferring to spend his time in the studio, writing, or mentoring a select few. He avoids institutions and is currently working on a memoir chronicling his decades of defiance against the sterilization of creativity.
Hewitt Callister – Exhibition CV
Born: 1956, Toronto, Canada
Lives and works: Montreal, Canada
Education
1973–1975 – Ontario College of Art (OCA), Toronto, Canada
Studied painting and drawing under instructors influenced by abstract expressionism and gestural abstraction.
Left before graduating to immerse himself in the underground art scenes of Montreal, New York, and Berlin.
Solo Exhibitions
2005 – Fighting the Paint, Werkhalle 9 (Berlin, Germany)
1996 – Rough Geometry, Atelier du Nord (Montreal, Canada)
1989 – Between the Stroke and the Ruin, Galerie Rauchwerk (Berlin, Germany)
1983 – Residual Gesture, Studio Praxis (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
1978 – Thresholds of Noise, Espace 27 (Montreal, Canada)
1974 – First Marks, Union Street Gallery (Toronto, Canada)
Selected Group Exhibitions
2009 – Final Marks, The Foundry Art Space (Montreal, Canada)
2002 – The Painter’s Resistance, Barton & Lewis Gallery (Toronto, Canada)
1999 – Relic and Gesture, Haus der Linie (Berlin, Germany)
1992 – Edge of the Frame, Orchard Street Studio Collective (New York, NY, USA)
1987 – Surface Tension, Galerie du Passage (Montreal, Canada)
1984 – Material / Immaterial, Horizon Studios (Toronto, Canada)
1981 – Subterraneans: Underground Abstraction, Westwerk Atelier (Berlin, Germany)
1979 – New Language, Old Walls, 14 Mercer Arts Club (New York, NY, USA)
1976 – Gestural Histories, The Red House (Montreal, Canada)
1973 – Emerging Forms, South Bay Studios (Toronto, Canada)
Publications & Press
2009 – Final Marks: A Retrospective Look at Callister, Feature article, Montreal Cultural Review
2003 – “Interview with a Ghost,” The Independent Painter
1997 – Rough Geometry: The Paintings of Hewitt Callister, Atelier du Nord Catalog
1990 – “The Last Gesture,” Berlin Art Report
1985 – Abstract Expressionism Revisited, Interview with Callister, Art & Form Quarterly
1980 – Studio Notes: Hewitt Callister, Montreal Arts Review
Hewitt Callister – Selected Bibliography (Art Writing & Criticism)
Hewitt Callister is an occasional but sharp-witted art critic, publishing essays and reviews in a range of independent art magazines, small-run journals, and alternative press outlets. His writings often focused on painting’s physicality, contemporary art commodification, and artistic integrity erosion in an increasingly market-driven world. Callister’s writing was often polemical, deeply engaged with the tactile experience of painting, and unafraid to challenge the dominant trends of the time. As many of these small publications shut down before the digital era, their archives remain scattered or incomplete — much like the raw, physical work Callister championed throughout his career.
Published Essays & Reviews
2008 – “The Brush is Dead, Long Live the Brush,” New Provincial Arts Journal (Montreal, Canada)
A meditation on the diminishing role of materiality in contemporary painting, arguing against digital art’s rise as a replacement for physical process.
2005 – “Ragged Edges: The Last Painters of the Old World,” The Berlin Art Ledger (Berlin, Germany)
An account of late-20th-century Berlin’s underground painting movements, detailing the fading culture of anti-institutional artist collectives.
2002 – “The Aesthetics of Neglect,” Review 22 (New York, USA)
A critique of how artificial distress and premeditated chaos in contemporary art fail to capture the raw urgency of historical abstractionists.
1998 – “The End of Gesture? Notes on a Vanishing Language,” The Abstract Eye (Toronto, Canada)
Explores the decline of expressive mark-making in favor of conceptual detachment, criticizing the academicization of painting.
1995 – “Surface Without Substance,” Art & Resistance (Montreal, Canada)
A scathing takedown of commercialized minimalism, accusing the art market of favoring slickness over struggle.
1993 – “The Painter’s Dilemma in the Postmodern Age,” Le Foyer des Arts (Paris, France)
Discusses the challenges of maintaining an authentic painting practice amid the dominance of theory-driven contemporary art.
1989 – “The Museum is a Graveyard,” Critical Forms Quarterly (New York, USA)
Questions the role of major institutions in neutralizing the radical potential of modernist painters by repackaging their work as safe, historical artifacts.
1986 – “What Happened to the Canvas?” Studio Review (Montreal, Canada)
A critique of the increasing reliance on installation and new media at the expense of traditional painting practices.
1983 – “After the Boom: Abstraction in the Ruins,” East River Arts Review (New York, USA)
Analyzes the collapse of New York’s post-abstract expressionist movements in the face of growing commercial pressures.
1980 – “The Last Authentic Painters,” Canadian Vanguard (Toronto, Canada)
A profile of Canadian abstract painters who rejected trends and continued working outside the mainstream.
1977 – “Notes from the Studio Floor,” Modern Gesture (Montreal, Canada)
Reflections on the material process of painting and its relationship to physical memory.
1975 – “A Space for Real Work,” The Independent Brush (Toronto, Canada)
An essay supporting artist-run spaces as the last refuge for painters uninterested in commercial success.