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Here & there, now & agin regions end where countries begin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

John Murchie
John Murchie*
Affiliation:
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
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Abstract

‘A historical dictionary of artists in Atlantic Canada’ is the first attempt to systematically develop the contours of four hundred years of visual arts in Atlantic Canada since the hegemony of Western European civilization. The project entails the development of a data base of biographical and professional information on artists born prior to 1939 and the beginning of the Second World War who were active in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada — New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The definition of ‘artist’ has been as broadly defined as possible to include craft persons, photographers, architects nor has there been an attempt to limit the definitions to ‘professionals’. The data is stored in a ‘FileMaker Pro’ programme using a Macintosh computer.

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References

1. The present essay is a revision of a lecture originally presented on 26th June 1996 at the National Gallery of Canada where I had been awarded a Research Fellowship in Historic Canadian Art as part of its Canadian Centre for the Visual Arts. The lecture was one of the results of the research which the fellowship allowed me to pursue, and I gratefully acknowledge the opportunity which the National Gallery extended to me. I would also acknowledge the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia where, as its Associate Curator, I am able to further develop the research and to the Province of New Brunswick which has awarded me a Documentation Grant to enable me to undertake further research on the project in the libraries, archives and museums of that Province. Such forms of public support are essential.Google Scholar
2. see Eggleton, Terry. The illusions of post modernism. Oxford: Blackwell, [1996].Google Scholar
3. see Bate, Walter Jackson. The burden of the past and the English poet. New York: W. W. Norton, 1970.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. The actual file contains approximately 2,500 names of artists with the data on another 650 to be added.Google Scholar
5. see, for instance, Swinton, George. ‘Painting in Canada.’ Queen’s quarterly vol. 63 no. 4 [1956] which develops a geographical perspective.Google Scholar
6. Only the three Maritime Provinces of New Brunswick, Noval Scotia and Prince Edward Island were part of Canada. Newfoundland joined the Confederation in 1949 and with the other three Maritime Provinces are referred to as the Atlantic Provinces.Google Scholar
7. see Kelly, Gemey. Arthur Lismer: Nova Scotia, 1916-1919. Halifax: Dalhousie Art Gallery, 1982.Google Scholar
8. Lawren, P. Harris seems to have also played such a gatekeeping role in his position as head of the fine arts programme at Mount Allison University between 1946 and 1975.Google Scholar
9. Murchie, John. Keeping faith: The life and work of Siegfried Haase. Halifax: Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 1994, p.10.Google Scholar
10. ibid. p. 10.Google Scholar
11. Paikowsky, Sandra Nova Scotian pictures: art in Nova Scotia, 1940-1966. Halifax: Dalhousie Art Gallery, 1994, p.8.Google Scholar
12. As an aside, the fine arts have always been represented in the country, provincial and regional agricultural exhibitions in the Atlantic region as was the case across Canada. However, only recently I discovered the extent of that representation in a 1908 photograph of ‘Fine Arts Building’ for the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition. It is a substantial, large building and, insofar as photographic evidence can be trusted, a permanent structure devoted solely to the ‘arts’ as a ‘fine arts gallery’ I know nothing more about the building, but its existence does give pause to reconsider the assertion that there were no adequate facilities for the exhibition and display of art at least in Nova Scotia.Google Scholar
13. Mainprize, Garry. ‘The National Gallery of Canada: A hundred years of exhibitions, list and index.’ RACAR vol. 11 nos.1-2, p.3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14. All references to the canceled exhibition ‘East Coast Painters’ are to be found in 12-4-93 Exhibitions in Canada-East Coast Painters 1960, National Gallery of Canada fonds, National Gallery of Canada archives.Google Scholar
15. For a complete listing of exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, see Mainprize.Google Scholar
16. Leclerc, Denise. The crisis of abstraction in Canada: the 1950s. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1993, p.36.Google Scholar
17. Murchie, John. ‘Aspects of Canadian painting in the seventies: “Stumbling through barbwire,” a look through the Glenbow Museum’s catalogue’. Article: a reviewing and opinion journal on the visual arts in Nova Scoria 2nd May 1980, p.19.Google Scholar
18. see Zemans, Joyce. ‘Establishing the canon: nationhood, identity and the National Gallery’s first reproduction program of Canadian art.’ fournal of Canadian art history vol. 16, no. 2 1995, p.27.Google Scholar