The artist behind the colourful scene stretching across the underside of the Burnside Road overpass above the Galloping Goose, as well as the Steam Donkey mural that helped give Chemainus its renown, has donated what may be his last piece of art to the Royal Jubilee Hospital.
Métis artist Frank Lewis presented Honouring Creation to the Victoria Hospitals Foundation on Thursday.
The piece, which illustrates Métis healing rituals, will hang in the new Patient Care Centre's All Nations Healing Room.
"He gave a beautiful painting from his heart and it was all about healing and communicating between all persons, all races," said Leslee Farrell, co-chair of Victoria Hospitals Foundation's Building Care Together campaign, which provides funding to the All Nations Healing Room.
"It was just a wonderful piece of art and this draws [attention] to our campaign and the importance of everything that's going into this hospital," she said.
Lewis grew up in Victoria and studied at the Vancouver School of Art. He won the Toronto Art Director's Artist of the Year Award for illustration in 1957, a gold medal for illustration in Montreal the following year, and a place in the New York Society of illustrators Show in 1963. After returning to the West Coast, he painted more and more large-scale murals and commissions for Daon Corporation, the Carnegie Library, the Westerly Hotel and others.
