Art and Architecture in Canada: A Bibliography and Guide to the Literature to 1981, Vol. 1 and 2

Patricia Vervoort is an assistant professor of art history at Lakehead
University.

This guide aims to identify the sources for the writing of Canadian
cultural history that incorporates art and architecture into the
mainstream of historical development. The bibliography includes
publications from 1825 to 1981; each of the 9555 entries has an abstract
to sum up the contents of the article, book, or exhibition catalogue.
The abstracts are invaluable for they identify the focus of each
publication and the names of the artists involved; the researcher is
saved valuable time by being able to select relevant sources, which
wouldn’t be possible in a bibliography listing only titles. The
abstracts appear in either English or French depending on the language
of the original; bilingual publications have abstracts in both English
and French.

A foreword by Ramsay Cook is titled “Towards the Discovery of
Canadian Cultural History.” The preface explains the procedures and
decisions about what’s included and why. Both the foreword and the
preface are themselves essays in Canadian cultural history.

Vol. 1 contains the entries and abstracts under various headings from
general, to specific mediums, and for each province. Other headings
include Advertising, Caricature, Folk Art, Decorative Arts, Education,
Collecting, Government, and even “Writing About Art.” Art of the
Native Peoples is subdivided into categories beginning with history and
surveys, geographical divisions from Northeastern Woodlands to
Subarctic, and a separate section for Indian art in the 20th century.
Inuit art is another category. The next division is Artists, where books
and articles about individuals are listed. Architecture includes
history, each province, individual architects, information about the
profession, and an extensive section on building types from military
architecture to shopping centres.

Vol. 2 contains indexes for authors and subjects; the subject index is
in both English and French. Individual artists listed in the index
appear with their dates. While Vol. 1 provides a fascinating impetus to
browse, Vol. 2 is needed to locate all relevant entries on a particular
artist or topic. Publications about Canadian art are not restricted to
those published in Canada; if it’s about Canadian art, it’s probably
included. “In Art and Architecture in Canada the emphasis is on the
elusive retrospective literature, the indispensable foundation for art
historical research.” The 1981 cut-off date is explained in the
preface as being that of the original research proposal to the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the fact that readers have
easy access to more recent publications and bibliographies.
Nevertheless, this book is an important milestone for Canadian art and
for Canadian cultural history.