British Columbia / Colombie britannique

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A Modern Life
Art and Design in British Columbia 1945-1960 by Ian Thom , Alan Elder

In 1949, the forest magnate, H.R. MacMillan, opened an exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery entitled "Design for Living," a show which brought together design and artistic communities to create four imaginary households for postwar Vancouverites. It also heralded an unprecedented level of cooperation between the province's industry and its artists and craftspeople—a relationship that seemed to hold great promise for the development of art, furniture, and craft in BC. The celebration of the cooperative spirit between "architects, artists and designers," between "potters, weavers and gardeners" is central to A Modern Life, which examines the coming together of what were often very separate disciplines in post-World War II British Columbia, as well as the trend-setting design and use of materials that developed in the province, and the impact these had on the more traditional art community. A Modern Life demonstrates that the ideas of the artistic and design community as a whole during this vibrant period—an era of optimism and promise for the future, in a province that had reason to believe passionately in what was to come—have a continued relevance and importance for our undestanding of the history of this community and the relationship of the built environment to the extraordinary landscape of BC. With essays by Rachel Chinnery, Scott Watson, Alan Elder, Allan Collier, and Sherry McKay. Includes

160 illustrations, including 60 in full-colour. A copublication with the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Designers and artists include: Alice Bradley, Stanley Clarke, Reginald Dixon, Zoltan Kiss, Sasha Makokin, Rex Mason, Wayne Ngan, Leonard Osborne, Mary Osborne, Hilda Ross, Francoise Andre, Peter Aspell, B.C. Binning, Bruni Bobak, Molly Lamb Bobak, Orville Fisher, Herbert Gilbert, Lawren Harris, E.J. Hughes, Don Jarvis, Ann Kipling, Roy Kiyooka, John Koerner, Eric Loewe, J.A.S. Macdonald, Toni Onley, Margaret Peterson, Joe Plaskett, Paul Rand, Jack Shadbolt, David Shilleto, Herbert Siebner, Gordon Smith, Takoe Tanabe, Ronald Thom, Lionel Thomas, Lillias Farley, Robert Hume, William Koochhin, William Percival Weston, Jean Clarke, Jack Hardman, Thomas Kakinuma, Beatrice Lennie, Sybil Andrews, Alistair Macready Bell, Stanley Brunst, Frank Perry, Patricia Irwin, Jock Macdonald, James Harold Willer, and George Kutham.

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Understanding Northwest Coast art: A guide to crests, beings and symbols
by Cheryl Shearer

UNDERSTANDING NORTHWEST COAST ART is a handy, dictionary-style reference guide to identifying and understanding the symbols, crests, and beings depicted in Northwest Coast Native American works of art such as totem poles, masks, and prints. The first section of the book features an alphabetical list of words relating to Northwest Coast art, with definitions, descriptions, and explanations and synopses of the major myths associated with them. As an aid to identification and understanding, many of the crests, beings, and symbols are illustrated in 70 reproductions of contemporary artworks and archival photos.

The entries cover a wide range: crests such as Eagle, Dogfish, or Dragonfly; ancestral beings such as Creek Woman or Thunderbird; mythic beings such as Raven, the Chief of the Undersea, or Cedar Man; and supernatural beings such as Death-Bringer.

The book also includes brief descriptions of the design conventions, design elements, and different art styles of Northwest Coast cultural groups, along with an overview of the interconnections between art, myth, and ceremony.

Easy to use and easy to read, this volume is an essential source for understanding and visually identifying the underlying themes and subjects of Northwest Coast Native American Art.

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Beyond Wilderness: The Group of Seven, Canadian Identity, and Contemporary Art
by John O'Brian , Peter White

"The great purpose of landscape art is to make us at home in our own country" was the nationalist maxim motivating the Group of Seven's artistic project. The empty landscape paintings of the Group played a significant role in the nationalization of nature in Canada, particularly in the development of ideas about northernness, wilderness, and identity. In this book, John O'Brian and Peter White pick up where the Group of Seven left off. They demonstrate that since the 1960s a growing body of both art and critical writing has looked "beyond wilderness" to re-imagine landscape in a world of vastly altered political, technological, and environmental circumstances. By emphasizing social relationships, changing identity politics, and issues of colonial power and dispossession contemporary artists have produced landscape art that explores what was absent in the work of their predecessors. Beyond Wilderness expands the public understanding of Canadian landscape representation, tracing debates about the place of landscape in Canadian art and the national imagination through the twentieth century to the present. Critical writings from both contemporary and historically significant curators, historians, feminists, media theorists, and cultural critics and exactingly reproduced artworks by contemporary and historical artists are brought together in productive dialogue. Beyond Wilderness explains why landscape art in Canada had to be reinvented, and what forms the reinvention took.

Contributors include Benedict Anderson (Cornell), Grant Arnold (Vancouver Art Gallery). Rebecca Belmore, Jody Berland (York), Eleanor Bond (Concordia), Jonathan Bordo (Trent), Douglas Cole, Marlene Creates, Marcia Crosby (Malaspina), Greg Curnoe, Ann Davis (Nickle Arts Museum), Leslie Dawn (Lethbridge), Shawna Dempsey, Christos Dikeakos, Peter Doig, Rosemary Donegan (OCAD), Stan Douglas, Paterson Ewen, Robert Fones, Northrop Frye, Robert Fulford, General Idea, Rodney Graham, Reesa Greenberg, Gu Xiong (British Columbia), Cole Harris (British Columbia), Richard William Hill (Middlesex), Robert Houle, Andrew Hunter (Waterloo), Lynda Jessup (Queen's), Zacharias Kunuk (Igloolik Isuma Productions), Johanne Lamoureux (Montréal), Robert Linsley (Waterloo), Barry Lord (Lord Cultural Resources), Marshall McLuhan, Mike MacDonald, Liz Magor (ECIAD), Lorri Millan, Gerta Moray (Guelph), Roald Nasgaard (Florida State), N.E. Thing Company, Carol Payne (Carleton), Edward Poitras, Dennis Reid (Art Gallery of Ontario), Michel Saulnier, Nancy Shaw (Simon Fraser), Johanne Sloan (Concordia), Michael Snow, Robert Stacey, David Thauberger, Loretta Todd, Esther Trépanier (Québec), Dot Tuer (OCAD), Christopher Varley, Jeff Wall, Paul H. Walton (McMaster), Mel Watkins (Toronto), Scott Watson (British Columbia), Anne Whitelaw (Alberta), Joyce Wieland, Jin-me Yoon (Simon Fraser), Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, and Joyce Zemans (York).

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