New Books For Canadian Art Lovers

Maud Lewis: Life & Work by Ray Cronin
Releasing: September 24, 2021

When it comes to folk art in Canada, there’s before Maud Lewis (1901–1970)—and after. Through her vivid, joyous paintings of brightly coloured landscapes, animals, and flowers, Lewis redefined how folk art is perceived by collectors, curators, and critics alike, and propelled Canadian galleries to collect and exhibit the once obscure artform. In Maud Lewis: Life & Work, a title presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, author Ray Cronin deftly explores Lewis’s story and creative legacy, and pays tribute to the cheerful paintings that testify to her indomitable spirit and will to create beauty in spite of adversity. Read More

War Art in Canada: A Critical History by Laura Brandon

Releasing: November 11, 2021

War Art in Canada is ACI’s inaugural thematic art book title—a series that explores topics or ideas that have had a profound impact upon Canadian art and the national imagination. Throughout Canadian history, conflict has been a catalyst of change and a destroyer of worlds. War Art in Canada investigates the universal theme of war through the country’s visual and cultural past. Weaving together artworks and stories to inform and enlighten us, author Laura Brandon navigates both peaceful and brutal subject matter. By presenting the dynamic and, at times, surprising visual legacies of conflict, she encourages readers to question assumptions about our country’s military past. Read More

Arnaud Maggs: Life & Work by Anne Cibola
Releasing: January 21, 2022

A master of reinvention, Arnaud Maggs (1926–2012) was a key member of Toronto’s mid-century design scene and a noted fashion photographer before focusing on his career as an artist and becoming renowned for his images of faces and found objects. Throughout the 1990s, he explored themes of memory and history by photographing found materials, from discarded ephemera to rare books, garnering attention in the New York Times and Village Voice. He chronicled people and paraphernalia with layers of meaning that are of personal, historical, and universal significance. In Arnaud Maggs: Life & Work, author Anne Cibola presents the breadth of Maggs’s oeuvre, from his early illustrations and photographs to his signature black-and-white portraits. Read More

Kent Monkman: Life & Work by Shirley Madill
Releasing: February 25, 2022

Subversive, bold, unapologetic, and unforgiving, the work of Kent Monkman (b.1965) has left an unmistakable mark on contemporary Canadian art. Since the early 2000s, Monkman, accompanied by his time-travelling, shape-shifting, gender-fluid alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, has redefined the Canadian cultural landscape. Riffing on techniques of the Old Masters, Monkman first found fame by recreating notable landscape paintings and populating them with Indigenous visions of resistance. Kent Monkman: Life & Work is the first comprehensive book on one of the most important and internationally celebrated contemporary artists in Canada. Read More

Gathie Falk: Life & Work by Michelle Jacques
Releasing: April 30, 2022

Apples, snowballs, shoes—the acclaimed work of Gathie Falk (b.1928) asks us to consider the haunting beauty of everyday objects. Falk is one of Canada’s most celebrated contemporary artists, a winner of the 2013 Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts, and also the recipient of the Order of Canada, the Gershon Iskowitz Prize, the Order of British Columbia, and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. In her paintings and sculptures, Falk combines a rich understanding of minimalism and the conceptualist readymade with a playful sensitivity reminiscent of poetry. In Gathie Falk: Life & Work, Michelle Jacques details the captivating life of this singular artist. Read More

Ottawa Art & Artists: An Illustrated History by Jim Burant
Releasing: May 27, 2022

Ottawa Art & Artists: An Illustrated History is the inaugural title in ACI’s cities series—books that explore the rich artistic heritage of cities across the country. Canadian art and our national imagination have been profoundly shaped by place. This new title seeks to celebrate this connection with the extraordinary legacy of our nation’s capital, where Indigenous peoples, settlers, and nation-builders created a community. Ottawa Art & Artists presents an in-depth critical study of the urban hub’s cultural and artistic history, its strengths and weaknesses, its lost possibilities, and its surprising successes. Read More

Thank You to Our Benefactors

ACI gratefully acknowledges our Founding Sponsor, BMO Financial Group.

We thank the 2021–2022 Canadian Online Art Book Project Title Sponsors for their support: Marilyn and Charlie Baillie; Alexandra Bennett in memory of Jalynn Bennett; Kiki and Ian Delaney; Blake C. Goldring, CM, MSM, CD; Lawson Hunter; The Honourable Margaret Norrie McCain; The Stonecroft Foundation for the Arts; Trinity Development Foundation.