Les Graff describes this book as "championing two essential ingredients - Alberta's fierce independence and individuality of the foundation for Alberta's visual arts - while exploring in-depth and detail the tremedously broad base of that foundation......Townshend's book will serve as a major reference for years to come and be pivotal regarding all future writing in the visual arts of Alberta."
The story of artists in Western Canada, and how they changed the face of Canadian art “Listen to the visual voices of artists. They tell us so poignantly who we are, what we must cherish, and what we must address as a society.” Patricia Bovey Throughout her remarkable career as a gallery director, curator, and author, Patricia Bovey has tirelessly championed the work of Western Canadian artists. Western Voices in Canadian Art brings this lifelong passion to a crescendo, delivering the most ambitious survey of Western Canadian Art to date. Beginning with the earliest European-trained artists in Western Canada, and moving up to present day, Bovey amplifies the depth, scope, and importance of the diverse artists (both settler and Indigenous) whose distinct voices have contributed to the Western Canadian artistic tradition. Bovey then adopts a thematic approach, richly informed by her knowledge and experience, connecting art and artists through time and across provincial boundaries. Insights from Bovey’s studio visits and conversations with artists enhance our understandings of the history and trajectory of, and impetus for Canadian artistic creation. Lavishly illustrated with over 250 works reproduced in full colour, Western Voices in Canadian Art is a book that needs to be seen, and its artists and art celebrated.
Emphasizing the ways in which social, economic, and political conditions determine representation, Marylin McKay moves beyond canonical images and traditional nationalistic interpretations by analyzing Canadian landscape art in relation to different concepts of territory. Taking an expansive and inclusive perspective on Canadian landscape art, McKay depicts this tradition in all its diversity and draws it into the larger body of Western landscape art, broadening the horizon of future study, appreciation, and criticism. Richly illustrated and filled with sophisticated and innovative commentary, Picturing the Land provides new and distinct histories of the landscape art of French and English Canada.
Based on decades of extensive archival research, Seen but Not Seen uncovers a great swath of previously-unknown information about settler-Indigenous relations in Canada.
Studies of Alberta's newspapers have generally concentrated on better-known newspapers published in major centres and the organs of significant political parties. Gloria H. Strathern's exhaustive historical directory makes it possible to review the role of the press on a more comprehensive basis.
Exploring the relationship between museums and biographies, this collection of essays examines examples from the early 19th century to the present day.
With lively, informative contributions by both scholars and activists, Bucking Conservatism highlights the individuals and groups who challenged Alberta’s conservative status quo in the 1960s and 70s. Drawing on archival records, newspaper articles, police reports, and interviews, the contributors examine Alberta’s history through the eyes of Indigenous activists protesting discriminatory legislation and unfulfilled treaty obligations, women and lesbian and gay persons standing up to the heteropatriarchy, student activists seeking to forge a new democracy, and anti-capitalist environmentalists demanding social change. This book uncovers the lasting influence of Alberta’s noncomformists---those who recognized the need for dissent in a province defined by wealth and right-wing politics---and poses thought-provoking questions for contemporary activists.
The history of women and art in Canada has often been celebrated as a story of progress from amateur to professional practice. Rethinking Professionalism challenges this narrative by questioning the assumptions that underlie the category of artistic professionalism, a construct as influential for artistic practice as it has been for art historical understanding. Through a series of in-depth studies, contributors examine changes to the infrastructure of the art world that resulted from a powerful discourse of professionalization that emerged in the late- nineteenth century. While many women embraced this new model, others fell by the wayside, barred from professional status by virtue of their class, their ethnicity, or the very nature of the artworks they produced. The richly illustrated essays in this collection depict the changing nature of the professional paradigm as it was experienced by women painters, photographers, craftspeople, architects, curators, gallery directors, and art teachers. In so doing, they demonstrate the ongoing power of feminist art history to disrupt patterns of thought that have become naturalized and, accordingly, invisible. Going beyond the narratives of recovery or exclusion that the category of professionalism has traditionally encouraged, Rethinking Professionalism explores the very consequences of telling the history of women's art in Canada through that lens. Contributors include Annmarie Adams (McGill University), Alena Buis (Queen's University), Sherry Farrell Racette (University of Manitoba), Cynthia Hammond (Concordia University), Kristina Huneault (Concordia University), Loren Lerner (Concordia University), Lianne McTavish (University of Alberta), Kirk Niergarth (Mount Royal University), Mary O'Connor (McMaster University), Sandra Paikowsky (Concordia University), Ruth B. Phillips (Carleton University), Jennifer Salahub (Alberta College of Art & Design), and Anne Whitelaw (Concordia University).
The Banff School opened its doors in 1933 by offering a summer drama course. Since then, it has grown into a renowned cultural destination, today known as the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. As PearlAnn Reichwein and Karen Wall recount in this engaging history, over its first four decades the school produced and circulated ideals of culture and liberal democratic citizenship that were intrinsic to the development of modern Canada. Uplift traces the role of the school in shaping arts and cultural education, as reflected in its array of artistic, political, economic, and ideological interests. Situated within Banff National Park, the school and its surroundings combined stunning natural scenery and cultural capital in a symbolic national landscape. In an era of unstable cultural policy and funding, Uplift draws welcome attention to the place of fine arts, culture, and the humanities in public education and in Canada’s history.
After the pioneers described in The National Dream, The Last Spike and Klondike came the settlers — a million people who filled a thousand miles of prairie in a single generation.
