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Lyle Hartman was born in the country south of Camrose in 1909. Primarily self-taught, he began making art late in life, choosing as his subject-matter the landscape, rural farm and small town scenery that was part of his everyday world. His work was generally devoid of people, although the suggestion of human presence was conveyed through the depiction of farm buildings that were set unobtrusively in his sprawling landscapes. His art would easily fit within the category of “naive” or “primitive” painting and, like most art of this type, found its strength in its unsophisticated charm and straightforward “unlearned” expression of colour and design. Unlike the art of most “naive” artists, however, Hartman's paintings usually avoided narrative – the nostalgic retelling of events from rural life or the wry observation of the foibles of the modern world – that typically characterizes this kind of art. Hartman's works tended to be straightforward recreations of the visual world, generally seen from a long vantage that seemed to impart a certain element of cool detachment. A sense of his artistic personality, though, always asserted itself, subtly conveyed through his simple patterning and the way he summarized the landscape features into clear, almost abstract, forms. Lyle Hartman was also an accomplished musician and inventor, and his reputation as an artist, although mostly created from a small number of shows in the province, was well-earned.
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