Abstract Painting In Canada. An Artist’s Bookshelf Review.

I’ve had a long love of books, and some of my most prized books are art books. This is a review of books from my collection that can be found on shelves in my studio. I will provide links when possible.

Abstract Painting In Canada.

If I had to recommend the one essential book about painting of any kind in Canada it would be Abstract Painting in Canada by Roald Nasgaard. This great resource is published by Douglas & McIntyre and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. It is an in-depth history of Canadian abstract painting from the 1920s to the turn of the millennium. Covering the many regional variations, schools, movements, and players in abstract painting in Canada, from the Automatistes of Montreal, to the east coast conceptual scene, to the west coast lyrical abstraction, to Toronto’s Painters Eleven.

European art movements such as surrealism played a role in shaping the careers of many Canadian abstract artists, and many artists looked to Paris as well as New York as the centre of the art world. While artists such as Jean-Paul Riopelle, and Paul-Emile Borduas, and Jean McEwen lived and worked in Paris, some such as William Ronald moved to New York. Still many more such as Painters Eleven remained in Canada, determined to create opportunities to exhibit their work and break away from the overbearing shadow of the Group of Seven and Canadian artistic conservatism.

Today there are many interesting painters working in all regions of Canada. But sadly it’s still hard to see their work. Canada is a huge, thinly populated country, and though there are many great galleries and museums, cuts by the Conservative government to museum exhibit transportation services means it is very costly to ship exhibitions from city to city let alone coast to coast. Add to this very little media coverage and only a handful of arts publications, and we end up with isolated groups even within our larger centres such as Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

Canadian abstraction differs from American abstraction most obviously in scale, and while early Canadian abstract painters did work on a large scale it was never as massive as most American painters. The use of materials and finish is also very different. While American artists used industrial materials such as household paint or enamels and took pride in a workman-like, expressive handling of the paintings surface, Canadian painters tended to use traditional artist oil paint and worked their canvases to high degree of finish in a European manner.

Of the artists in the book whose work I admire I would list Jean-Paul Riopelle, Paul-Emile Borduas, Francoise Sullivan, Jack Bush, Jean McEwen, Claude Tousignant, Ron Shuebrook, Otto Rogers, Betty Goodwin, and Francois Lacasse.

It is a large book of 432 pages, with 200 fine colour illustrations that present the colour and texture of the paintings well, though as with all book illustrations it is hard to get a good impression of the scale.

Patrick Heron. An Artist’s Bookshelf Review.

I’ve had a long love of books, and some of my most prized books are art books. This is a review of books from my collection that can be found on shelves in my studio. I will provide links when possible.

Patrick Heron.

One of my favorite painters is the great British artist Patrick Heron, and this little book from the St Ives Artist series is a nice introduction to his work. It has an interesting and readable essay by Michael McNay that covers his life and career, and there are many colour illustrations that give a good sense of his progression as a colourist from his early, muted earth tones to his glorious Matisse-inspired canvases that would drive the majority of his career.

I particularly admire his paintings from the 1960s of glowing orbs, with stunning colour, and loose aggressive brush strokes. His harder-edge paintings of the 1970s, though simpler in appearance, are feats of great endurance often painted with a small brush to create the clean crisp edge of his shapes. The colours of these painting can only be described as hot. But it is his late paintings of the 1990s that are to me his most daring works. They are made of loose flowing lines and scribbles of colour and are joyful, powerful works. I admire painters who keep on experimenting, and he went out with a bang.

Robert Rauschenberg Combines, An Artist’s Review.

An Artist's Bookshelf Review.

I’ve had a long love of books, and some of my most prized books are art books. This is a review of books from my collection that can be found on shelves in my studio. I will provide links when possible.

Off The wall.

If you are interested in learning more about the life and work of Robert Rauschenberg a good book to start with would be, Off the Wall: A Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg by Calvin Tomkins. It is a very readable and informative book on the early life and work of Rauschenberg.

Robert Rauschenberg Combines.

Other books that I highly recommend are, Robert Rauschenberg Combines, published by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Steidl Verlag (if you are interested in book design check out www.steidlville.com). It can only be described as a work of art in itself. The illustrations are in lavish full colour showing many details of important works, and the essays are readable and informative. It is simply a breathtaking work on one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

Robert Rauschenberg, Cardboards and Related Pieces.

Cardboards and Related Pieces focuses on a body of work Rauschenberg created in the early 1970’s. After he moved to Captiva Island he couldn’t find interesting scrape or junk that he used to create much of his work. He turned to the closest thing at hand which was the cardboard boxes that he found in his studio or on the street. He started breaking the boxes apart and gluing them back together, and eventually he started casting them in clay and bronze.

These are great books to explore the work and life of this unique, and great artist.

An Artist’s Bookshelf Review. Sean Scully.

Bookshelf.

I’ve had a long love of books, and some of my most prized books are art books. This is a review of books from my collection that can be found on shelves in my studio. I will provide links when possible.

Sean Scully.

Thames & Hudson have published several books about the work of the Irish-American painter Sean Scully.

Sean Scully by David Carrier is a fine introduction to the work of this great painter. It has 200 illustrations, 190 are in colour, and covers all aspects of his career, from his earliest work, to his work as a printmaker and photographer. Sean Scully is an abstract painter who takes his inspiration from the world around him. There is an interesting section of his photographs of the fronts of buildings, showing doors, windows, and shadows on pages 162-163, called Atlas Walls.

Atlas Wall.

In these photos I can see his inspiration for much of his recent work. Scully is an artist whose work gets better with age. His painting is much looser, and his use of colour is subtle and lush.

“This book is the first fully illustrated monograph to present an account of the artist’s life and career to date, from his childhood in 1950s London, via New York and Barcelona, to the present day in Munich. Lavish reproductions of his major works illustrate the text, while photographs taken by Scully on his travels show some of the forms that inspire them. Photographs of Scully at work in his studio demonstrate stage by stage how he creates his pictures, from blank canvas to finished work.”