The Crisis of Abstraction in Canada: The 1950s

Patricia Morley is a professor of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University, an associate fellow of the Simone de Beauvoir
Institute, and author of Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

Long in the planning, this catalogue presents a collection of 158
paintings, works on paper, and sculptures (by some 60 Canadian artists)
on exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada from 1992 to 1994.

The Modernist movement reflected the changes and general dynamism of
the early postwar period. Leclerc, assistant curator of Later Canadian
Art at the National Gallery, examines the period of radical
transformation—in particular its background and influence.

Richly illustrated in black and white, with 19 color paintings, the
volume offers historical and biographical information on many painters.
Leclerc groups them into three regions: Montreal, Toronto, and
“Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, and Vancouver.”

The title reflects the uncertain future of nonobjective painting in the
1950s, a time when many Canadian art critics considered abstraction a
marginal phenomenon with no prospects. Leclerc has chosen to provide not
a complete history of abstract art in Canada in the 1950s but rather
“a cross-section of some of the more daring experiments, chosen with
regard to their place of origin and examined in their respective
contexts.”

Experimentation with new materials accompanied the new approaches;
therefore, the catalogue includes a technical essay by Marion H. Barclay
and a bibliography on materials and techniques. It also includes a long
selected bibliography on artists.

Carefully conceived, well designed, and handsomely produced, this
exhibition catalogue is a major contribution to the field.