b. 1907, Caron, Saskatchewan
d. 1966, Edmonton, Alberta
Pragnell studied at the Winnipeg School of Art with Keith Gebhart and
L. L. FitzGerald, where he won the Mundell Prize Scholarship, the Banff
School of Fine Arts with Middleton and Glyde (received high honors), at
the Department of Education in Victoria with W.P. Weston and J.W.G.
MacDonald, at the Montreal Art Association (attending lectures by Arthur
Lismer), in New York with Hans Hofmann (c.1952), and later in a summer
class at the Chicago Art Institute.
He lived and worked in Moose Jaw during the '30s, but remained closely
attached to painters in Saskatoon. Pragnell was Head of the first Art
Department at Moose Jaw’s Technical High School.
He became the general art supervisor for all public and technical
schools and colleges in Moose Jaw (1932-39). After service in the RCAF
during WWII, when he was a public relations artist, Pragnell taught and
worked in Winnipeg, Vermont, and California between 1949 and 1958. While
in Winnipeg he was appointed principal of the Winnipeg School of Art; in
Lethbridge, Alberta he was the Director and Art Instructor at the Lethbridge Art
Centre. He taught at the Lethbridge Sketch Club and in that city’s
schools. Pragnell joined the
faculty of the University of Alberta in 1963.
It is generally thought that Pragnell brought a considerable knowledge
of modernism to his teaching and therefore he was among a number of
artists who introduced those concepts into Alberta.
This can be seen in his own works where he has abstracted the
space, worked with broad swathes of color, and monumentalized form.
Pragnell was a member of the Art Association of Saskatoon (1937); Moose
Jaw Sketch Club (1939); Winnipeg Sketch Club (1928-9); Saskatchewan
Provincial Art Association (1938) and the Royal Canadian Academy of Art
(1939).
