Agnes Martin: Life & Work explores the life, origins, and art of one of the most internationally celebrated painters to emerge from this country. It reveals how Martin gained renown in the male-dominated art world of the 1950s and 1960s, becoming a pivotal figure between two of the era’s dominant movements: Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. Delving into Martin’s signature style composed of tranquil grids and stripes, the book investigates the origin of Martin’s method, which she perfected over the better part of four decades, following her belief in the transformative power of art. “I would like [my pictures] to represent beauty, ...

Annie Pootoogook: Life & Work traces the artist’s life from her youth at the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative’s Kinngait Studios, where she began drawing in 1997, predominantly in ink and crayon, to her death in 2016. The book explores how in addition to depicting scenes of everyday life in the North—including people watching TV, playing cards, shopping, or cooking dinner—Pootoogook depicted such subjects as alcoholism, domestic abuse, food scarcity, and the effects of intergenerational trauma. In 2006 Pootoogook was the recipient of Canada’s Sobey Art Award, an important early career achievement that recognized the artist’s singular vision. The award led to her ...

Provocateurs General Idea (active 1969–1994) invented their history and made it reality: “We wanted to be famous, glamourous and rich. That is to say we wanted to be artists and we knew that if we were famous and glamourous we could say we were artists and we would be.… We did and we are. We are famous, glamourous artists.” The group—comprised of AA Bronson, Felix Partz, and Jorge Zontal—met in Toronto in the late 1960s and went on to live and work together for twenty-five years. General Idea ceased activities in 1994, with the untimely deaths of Partz and Zontal ...

Joyce Wieland: Life & Work documents one of Canada’s pivotal and most internationally renowned artists of the 1960s and 1970s. By 1971 her canvases could be found in museums across Canada and her pioneering experimental films were included in such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, the Royal Belgium Film Archives, and the Austrian Film Archives. This book traces her career, which began as a painter but expanded to incorporate a range of media and materials, including sculpture, textile-based art, and experimental film. Johanne Sloan reveals how Wieland’s work—often politically engaged with issues of war, gender, ecology, and nationalism while remaining ...

Michael Snow traces the dualistic structure of his work to his Canadian upbringing between two cultures—English and French—and his early awareness of the different qualities of sight and sound, learned from his parents. Having studied at the Ontario College of Art in his native Toronto, he travelled in Europe in the 1950s and lived in New York in the 1960s. Snow’s contributions to three spheres of cultural activity—visual art, experimental film, and music—have been recognized internationally.