It has been a banner year for books about Indigenous art. From contemporary Cree art star Kent Monkman’s fantastical journey through time to image-rich monographs about Northwest Coast artists Robert Davidson, Dempsey Bob and Hazel Wilson, 2022 may well be remembered as the year that Indigenous art burst forth on covers across the land. Perhaps that is not surprising – galleries and museums are major publishers of catalogues and art books, and have upped their quotient of Indigenous shows in recent years to support truth and reconciliation.
The grandest book is probably Echoes of the Supernatural: The Graphic Art of Robert Davidson, a handsome hardcover published in conjunction with the Vancouver Art Gallery’s exhibition Guud San Glans Robert Davidson: A Line That Bends But Does Not Break, on view until April 16. The book is a visual marvel, with its bold colours and the dramatic curves of Haida formline, aspects that are incorporated into its design, including the stunning cover. It reproduces some 200 prints and paintings by Davidson, one of the leading Northwest Coast artists of his generation.
The most provocative of this year’s Indigenous titles is arguably Monkman’s Being Legendary at the Royal Ontario Museum: Confronting Colonialism, Rethinking History. With an array of work from his current Toronto exhibition, Being Legendary, it questions how museums can incorporate Indigenous knowledge and remain relevant in the 21st century. Fans of Monkman’s gender-fluid alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, will enjoy this time-travelling odyssey.
Another strong contender is Dempsey Bob: In His Own Voice, an approachable book published in tandem with a major exhibition, Wolves: The Art of Dempsey Bob, which opened in the spring at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, B.C., and then stopped in Calgary at the Glenbow’s temporary digs. It’s on view at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection near Toronto starting Dec. 10. The book’s glossy photographs of gorgeous carvings by Bob, who is of Tahltan and Tlingit descent, are accompanied by engaging first-person stories about his life.
Another fascinating book tells the story of Hazel Wilson’s ambitious project to document Haida history. Glory and Exile: Haida History Robes of Jut-ke-Nay Hazel Wilson is a project of the Haida Gwaii Museum. Wilson, who died in 2016, created The History Series, composed of 51 painted robes that depict traditional activities like food gathering, the arrival of Europeans and children being taken to residential school. Each image in the book is accompanied by her reflections. Vancouver gallerist Robert Kardosh, who wrote one of the book's essays, calls The History Series “one of the most important works in a textile medium ever produced in this country.”
Of course, many other books appeared this year, despite ongoing supply-chain and distribution issues that have plagued the publishing industry since the start of the pandemic. Publishers are also bracing as the latest inflationary increases for food and housing start to pinch on the public’s discretionary spending on books. But for those who want to shop, Galleries West has spotted new titles on historical topics, monographs about various contemporary artists, as well as a range of more scholarly publications.
It’s a rare year that Canadian publishers forgo a chance to publish a new book on the Group of Seven. In 2022, it is Jackson’s Wars: A.Y. Jackson, the Birth of the Group of Seven, and the Great War. Ontario-based historian Douglas Hunter considers the formative years of the feisty artist, who enlisted to fight in the First World War and became a war artist after he was wounded in 1916.
Another historical book, E.J. Hughes: Canadian War Artist, focuses on the Second World War experiences of the Vancouver Island artist. It is the fourth book Victoria author Robert Amos has written about E.J. Hughes in as many years. Like the others, it is rich in detail and imagery, including many meticulous field sketches. Last year’s release, the E.J. Hughes Book of Boats, picked up a B.C. and Yukon Book Prize.
Tangentially linked to the Group of Seven is Frances-Anne Johnston: Art and Life. Johnston, the daughter of Group member Franz Johnston, was largely overlooked by the art world’s male gatekeepers. Rebecca Basciano, the Ottawa Art Gallery curator who organized the exhibition, A Family Palette, positions her as one of the country’s finest painters of flowers, interiors and still life. The book includes many lovely images.
For those who like whodunits, The Great Canadian Art Fraud Case: The Group of Seven & Tom Thomson Forgeries, by Jon S. Dellandrea, is an entertaining book that revisits a major art scam in the 1960s. If you are lucky enough to own a Group of Seven painting, you may find yourself wondering if it could be a fake.
Generations: The Sobey Family and Canadian Art explores one of the country’s largest private art collections, much of it amassed by the late Donald Sobey, the grocery store titan. The book, which accompanied an exhibition of the same name at the McMichael, includes many works by Cornelius Krieghoff and the Group of Seven.
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Gathie Falk: Revelations is one of two books this year about the veteran Vancouver artist, published in conjunction with her exhibition at the McMichael, which runs until Jan. 8. The other is Gathie Falk: Life & Work, an online, open-access book written by Michelle Jacques, chief curator of the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, for Toronto’s Art Canada Institute.
Arnaud Maggs: Life & Work, an account of the late Toronto photographer by Anne Cibola, a professor at Sheridan College in Greater Toronto, and Ottawa Art & Artists: An Illustrated History, by Jim Burant, who worked at Library and Archives Canada until his retirement in 2011, are also available through the Art Canada Institute’s website.
Lushly visual, Janet Werner: Sticky Pictures, a collaboration between Griffin Art Projects in Vancouver and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, looks at recent figurative paintings by the Winnipeg-born artist. Werner, who is based in Montreal, draws from fashion magazines and art history to create collage-like female figures.
Jan Wade: Soul Power, published in conjunction with a recent show at the Vancouver Art Gallery, offers appealing close-up images of Wade’s mixed-media assemblages. Also, fans of Vancouver artist Jin-me Yoon may enjoy the book that accompanies her show, About Time, on view until March 5 at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Eli Bornstein: Arctic Journals 1986 and 1987 tells the story of the longtime Saskatchewan artist’s two visits to Ellesmere Island. Bornstein, who will turn 100 on Dec. 28, calls the island “the greatest church on earth.”
It’s unusual to find a book about art and spirituality, but this year saw publication of In the Present Moment: Buddhism, Contemporary Art and Social Practice, part of an ambitious project by curator Haema Sivanesan that delves into Buddhism’s influence on contemporary art in North America.
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Two photography books give an insider’s look at the human drama of the COVID-19 crisis in Calgary hospitals, Alone Together: A Pandemic Photo Essay by Leah Hennel, a staff photographer for Alberta Health Services, and Shadows and Light: A Physician’s Lens on COVID, by Heather Patterson, a Calgary physician. Another new photography book, Fabrice Strippoli: Synchronicity, offers black-and-white street photography from Toronto.
Other Indigenous books this year include Wabanaki Modern, which tells the story of an East Coast Indigenous-led artist co-operative in the early 1960s that was featured at Expo 67, and Knowledge Within: Treasures of the Northwest Coast, which offers a tour of museums and cultural centres with significant collections of Northwest Coast art.
Several books from academic publishers are worth noting. There’s a new book by Liz Magor, Subject to Change: Writing and Interviews, which gathers her statements, essays, interviews and other musings. Unsettling Canadian Art History, edited by Erin Morton, a history professor at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, includes essays by Mark A. Cheetham, Adrienne Huard, Charmaine A. Nelson and other visual artists and scholars, who consider everything from Norval Morrisseau and diasporic art to fugitive slaves. Another collection, Qummut Qukiria! Art, Culture, and Sovereignty Across Inuit Nunaat and Sápmi: Mobilizing the Circumpolar North looks at themes related to land, language, decolonial practices and circumpolar resistance.
Finally, some books to watch for in 2023:
- Brian Jungen: Couch Monster, which tells the story of a bronze elephant modelled from repurposed leather furniture, will be released by early January.
- Stan Douglas: 2011 ≠ 1848, which looks at the Vancouver artist’s project at this year’s Venice Biennale, is due in January.
- Moving the Museum: Indigenous + Canadian Art at the AGO, a project of Wanda Nanibush and Georgiana Uhlyarik, is expected in January.
- Senator Patricia Bovey’s survey of Western Canadian art history, Western Voices in Canadian Art, is slated for release in February.
- Making History: Visual Arts and Blackness in Canada, edited by three curators – Julie Crooks, Dominique Fontaine and Silvia Forni – is expected in February.
- Ed Burtynksy’s new book, African Studies, is expected in May from Steidl, a German photo-book publisher.