My research on Michael Snow has been supported by an award from the Canada Council for the Arts, a research fellowship from the National Gallery of Canada, and a Concordia University Research Chair. The Art Gallery of Ontario, where Michael Snow has deposited his papers, is an invaluable resource. The archivists and librarians of the NGC and the AGO are national treasures. My work on Snow is continuing through my tenure as Research Chair and Director of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, for which I thank the donors for their great generosity. Other supporters of my research have been the editors and curators who have commissioned chapters and catalogue essays, as well as the conference session chairs who have facilitated discussion of Snow’s work. The bibliography for this text should also be read as an acknowledgment of the brilliant scholars who have worked on Snow. As for anecdotal evidence, I cannot begin to list, so as to thank, the many people who have shared their Snow stories and who have let me tell mine.
The Art Canada Institute is a monument-in-the-making. I am very proud to have been invited by Founding Commissioning Editor Mark Cheetham to write the first “life and work” of a contemporary artist. This has been an honour and a great learning experience. Publisher Sara Angel has assembled an amazing team—please see the ACI masthead for a roll call of the knowledgeable, the rigorous, and the supportive. Proving that peer review is not always a thankless task, I also want to acknowledge the anonymous reader of this text for some very helpful suggestions. As always, my biggest thanks are due to the artist, Michael Snow, who was also my collaborator on this project as we chose the key works together. Michael Snow and Peggy Gale have been generously opening their minds and their home to me for the many years that I have worked on this brilliant artist—my object and my quest.
From the Art Canada Institute
This online art book was made possible thanks to the generosity of its Lead Sponsor, BMO Financial Group, and the book’s Title Sponsor, Partners in Art. As well, the ACI gratefully acknowledges its Online Art Book Sponsors for the 2013–14 Season: The Hal Jackman Foundation; Aimia; Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc.; The McLean Foundation; TD Bank Group; Partners in Art; and Rosenthal Zaretsky Niman & Co., LLP.
Thanks also to the Art Canada Institute Founding Patrons: Sara and Michael Angel, Jalynn H. Bennett, The Butterfield Family Foundation, David and Vivian Campbell, Albert E. Cummings, Kiki and Ian Delaney, The Fleck Family, Roger and Kevin Garland, Michelle Koerner and Kevin Doyle, Phil Lind, Sarah and Tom Milroy, Charles Pachter, Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan, Sandra L. Simpson, and Robin and David Young; as well as its Founding Partner Patrons: The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and Partners in Art.
The Art Canada Institute gratefully acknowledges the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Art Commons for History of Art Education and Training (CACHET) for their contribution toward the translation of this online art book.
Finally, the ACI thanks Michael Snow for his considerable support and assistance. Without his contribution to this project, it would not have been possible.
Image Sources
Every effort has been made to secure permissions for all copyrighted material. The Art Canada Institute will gladly correct any errors or omissions.
Credits for Banner Images
Biography: Michael Snow in New York in 1964, photographed by John Reeves. (See below for details.)
Key Works: Michael Snow, Plus Tard #20, 1977. (See below for details.)
Significance & Critical Issues: Michael Snow, Four Grey Panels and Four Figures, 1963. (See below for details.)
Style & Technique: Michael Snow, The Corner of Braque and Picasso Streets, 2009. (See below for details.)
Sources & Resources: Michael Snow, Venetian Blind, 1970. (See below for details.)
Where to See: Michael Snow, Flight Stop, 1970, photographed by Owen Byrne. (See below for details.)
Credits for Works by Michael Snow
Atlantic, 1967. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Authorization, 1969. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (15830).
Blind, 1968. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1969 (15779).
Carla Bley, 1965. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, gift of the Jerrold Morris International Gallery, 1966.
The Corner of Braque and Picasso Streets, 2009. Collection of the artist.
*Corpus Callosum, 2002. Collection of the artist.
De La, 1972. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1972 (17095).
8 x 10, 1969. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, and Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, Vienna.
Flight Stop, 1979. Toronto Eaton Centre. Collection of the artist.
Four Grey Panels and Four Figures, 1963. Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, purchase, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Volunteer Association Fund and Horsley and Annie Townsend Bequest (2005.97.1-4). Photograph by Brian Merrett.
Four to Five, 1962. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Immediate Delivery, 1998. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Jazz Band, 1947. Collection of the artist.
La Région Centrale, 1971. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1974 (30983).
Lac Clair, 1960. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1967 (15317).
Michael Snow: Cover to Cover, 1975. Published by the Press of Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Halifax; and New York University Press, New York.
Plus Tard #15, 1977. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1977 (18842.1-25).
Plus Tard #20, 1977. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1977 (18842.1-25).
Quits, 1960. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Rameau’s Nephew by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen, 1972–74. Collection of the artist.
Recombinant, 1992. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Scope, 1967. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1977 (18777.1-7).
Serve, Deserve, 2009. Collection of the artist.
Shunt, 1959. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1970 (15921).
Snow Storm, 1967. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1968 (15456.1-4).
Solar Breath (Northern Caryatids), 2002. Courtesy of the artist.
Still Life in 8 Calls, 1985. Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, gift of the family of Jean-Pierre and Johanne Pelletier (1996.26a-h).
Still Living—9 x 4 Acts–Scene 1, 1982. Collection of the artist.
Two Sides to Every Story, 1974. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1977 (18768).
Venetian Blind, 1970. Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa. Courtesy of the artist.
Venus Simultaneous, 1962. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
The Viewing of Six New Works, 2012. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Wavelength, 1966–67. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1970.
Credits for Photographs and Works by Other Artists
Altered front page of the New York Post, 1962, reproduced in Michael Snow, Biographie of the Walking Woman / de la femme qui marche: 1961–1967 (Brussels: La lettre volée, 2004).
Antoinette Levesque and Gerald Bradley Snow, Michael Snow’s mother and father, in the mid-1920s in Chicoutimi, Quebec. Published in Michael Snow, Michael Snow / A Survey (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario / Isaacs Gallery, 1970).
Biographie of the Walking Woman / de la femme qui marche: 1961–1967, by Michael Snow (Brussels: La lettre volée, 2004).
Installation view of Michael Snow’s Walking Woman Works exhibition, 1984, London Regional Art Gallery (now Museum London).
Ken Dean’s jazz band Hot Seven, with Michael Snow on the piano, playing at a frat party at the University of Toronto in 1965. Courtesy of the artist.
Michael Snow / A Survey, by Michael Snow (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario / Isaacs Gallery, 1970).
Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland in 1964, photographed by John Reeves. Courtesy of John Reeves.
Michael Snow chopping wood in Newfoundland in 1994, photographed by Peggy Gale. Courtesy of Peggy Gale and Michael Snow.
Michael Snow in New York in 1964, photographed by John Reeves. Courtesy of John Reeves.
Michael Snow poses with his work Transformer, 1982, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Michael Snow with the machine he and Pierre Abeloos designed to film La Région Centrale. Photograph by Joyce Wieland, October 1969. Courtesy of the artist.
Red Square: Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions, 1915, by Kazimir Malevich. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
Still from Toronto Jazz, 1964, directed by Don Owen. National Film Board of Canada, Toronto.
The 1976 album cover of Canadian Creative Music Collective’s Volume One. Courtesy of the artist.
Three volumes published on the occasion of the Michael Snow Project, co-organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario and The Power Plant in Toronto. Left to right: Music/Sound, 1948–1993, edited by Michael Snow (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, The Power Plant, and Knopf Canada, 1994); Visual Art, 1951–1993, by Dennis Reid, Philip Monk, Louise Dompierre, Richard Rhodes, and Derrick de Kerckhove (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, The Power Plant, and Knopf Canada, 1994); and Presence and Absence: The Films of Michael Snow, 1956–1991, edited by Jim Shedden (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, The Power Plant, and Knopf Canada, 1995). A fourth volume was also published, The Collected Writings of Michael Snow, by Michael Snow, foreword by Louise Dompierre (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1994).
Viewers inside the sculpture Blind. Courtesy of the artist.
Art Canada Institute
Massey College, University of Toronto
4 Devonshire Place
Toronto, ON M5S 2E1
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Langford, Martha, author
Michael Snow : life & work / Martha Langford.
Includes bibliographical references.
Contents: Biography — Key works — Significance & critical issues – Style & technique — Where to see — Notes – Glossary — Sources & resources — About the author — Credits.
Electronic monograph.
ISBN 978-1-4871-0004-9 (pdf).—ISBN 978-1-4871-0006-3 (epub)
1. Snow, Michael, 1928-. 2. Snow, Michael, 1928- —Criticism and interpretation. 3. Artists—Canada—Biography. 4. Art, Canadian—20th century. I. Art Canada Institute, issuing body II. Title.
About the Author
Download PDF
Read from Beginning