National Network for Equitable Library Service

This is an intimate biography of an artist who became a legend after his death, but who in his private life stands revealed as a troubled man who was, in many ways, his own victim. Joan Murray's new biography is part detective work, too: she investigates his beliefs, and the origins of his great masterpieces, and provides a convincing description of the possible circumstances of his death. The art of Tom Thomson represents one of the high points of Canadian modernism, which flourished in the first two decades of this century.

Posted to Canada examines, for the first time, the immense body of work created by George Dartnell, a British army surgeon stationed in Canada from 1835 to 1844. Dartnell, an accomplished and popular surgeon, sketched more than 150 scenes of a pristine Canada of dense forests, clear lakes and rough-edged beauty during his nine-year posting – all of which form an important part of Canada’s pre-photographic visual history.

Winner of the 2006 Fred Landon Award Osgoode Hall is a national monument and one of the architectural treasures of Canada. Of the many public buildings erected in pre-confederation Canada and British North America, it best encapsulates the diverse stylistic forces that shaped public buildings in the first half of the nineteenth century. The gated lawns, grandly Venetian rotunda, the noble dimensions of its library, handsome and ornate courtroom, portrait-lined walls and stained glass evoke a venerable dignity to which few Canadian institutions even aspire.

Lawren Stewart Harris’ artistic career began in the first decade of our century. Well known for the nationalist-inspired landscapes that he painted between 1908 and 1932, Harris turned resolutely in 1934 to the painting of abstractions. He continued to create works that reflected his own modernist and mystical developments until the end of his life. Canadians praise Harris’ landscapes and admire him as a planner of innovative and heroic-sounding sketching trips into the North. He is also recognized as the chief organizer of the Group of Seven.

How do governments design their strategy for heritage property? What do they try to accomplish in their laws and their tax systems to favour the re-use of older buildings, districts, and cities? What institutional framework can assist the restoration of tourist designations and the conservation of neighbourhoods? In this international study, eighteen experts from ten countries describe the legal challenges and solutions relating to such property.

James Wilson Morrice (1865–1924) was a Canadian painter of extraordinary passion and simplicity whose canvases and oil sketches are valued throughout the world and cherished in Canada as our first real examples of modern art.Though cut short by chronic alcohol abuse, Morrice’s restless bohemian life was spent in constant motion.

What do Superman, Prince Valiant, Cerebus the Aardvark, and Spawn have in common? Their creators — Joe Shuster, Harold Foster, Dave Sim, and Todd McFarlane are Canadians. And while many of the cutting-edge talents of contemporary comix and graphic novels are also from Canada — artists such as Chester Brown, Seth, Dave Cooper, and Julie Doucet — far too few Canadians realize their country had a remarkable involvement with the "funnies" long before.

Winner of the 1999 International Gallery of Superb Printing Gold Award for Superb Craftsmanship in Production Franz Johnston is the missing man of Canadian painting. The most prolific and financially successful of the original Group of Seven, Johnston’s paintings were among the most sought after in Canada in the years between the mid-1920s and his death in 1949. They appear in the collections of dozens of discriminating private collectors, and in institutions such as the National Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the McMichael Canadian Collection, and the Canadian War Museum.

Frederick Horsman Varley was unique among the members of the Group of Seven. One of the greatest Canadian portraitists of the twentieth century, he is an intriguing example of an artist who, despite his fame as a portrait painter, remains better known for his landscapes. This is due mainly to his position as one of the founding members of the Group of Seven and their deliberate attempt to raise awareness of our national identity by depicting the Canadian landscape.

From 1876 to 1915, Edward James Lennox was a formidable force in Toronto’s architectural community. Many of his buildings are still landmarks in a city that continues to evolve.Born and educated in Toronto, Lennox looked to the past for inspiration but was never captured by it. His prototypical Annex houes on Madison Avenue, Old City Hall, and Casa Loma bear witness to his technical expertise and aesthetic sensibilities.