Eric Metcalfe

In 2021, the University of Victoria held an exhibition titled Pop Anthropology of Eric Metcalfe’s oeuvre, spanning over sixty years, in celebration of the artist’s honorary doctorate (UVic DFA 2021, BFA 1970). It honoured his years as a student in Visual Arts at the University of Victoria in the early 1970s, as well as his lifetime achievements as a pioneer in performance art in western Canada and co-founder of the Western Front.

With artists such as Hank Bull, Michael Morris, and Vincent Trasov, he explored comic book-style drawings and Fluxus conceptual art. In the 1970's, Metcalfe and Kate Craig to whom he was married (in 1969) started performing under the persona Dr. Brute and Lady Brute. They went dressed in leopard print to art openings and played leopard print instruments with the Brute Sax Band. They also collected examples of leopard print imagery from art, advertisements, magazines, and everyday life, and distributed them through a mail-art network. Metcalfe called their project to cover the world in leopard spots "Brutopia". In 1973, Metcalfe was one of the eight original founders of the Western Front Society.

Eric Metcalfe was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and grew up in Victoria, British Columbia. He travelled to Europe in 1960 and 1961, and on his return, worked as a truck driver for five years. He then met Maxwell Bates in 1966 who encouraged him in his practise as an artist. On a scholarship he entered the University of Victoria in 1967 and studied for three years with artists such as Dana Atchley and Peter Daglish, among others (1967-1971) graduating with his B.F.A. in 1971.