Press Releases

October 22, 2024 New book on Betty Goodwin spotlights a giant of contemporary Canadian art in honour of Women’s History Month
Betty Goodwin: Life & Work, the new open-access online art book by Jessica Bradley, details the indelible impact of an artist who established a critically acclaimed career in the early 1970s after a major breakthrough in printmaking. Celebrated for her haunting prints and drawings, Goodwin emerged in mid-life as an artist of consequence, becoming one of Canada’s greatest contemporary creators.
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September 18, 2024 Overcoming the horrors of Canada’s residential school system, Carl Beam became one of the world’s most revered artists and forged an activist art career
Carl Beam: Life & Work, the new open-access online art book by his daughter, Anong Migwans Beam, is publishing on September 18, 2024, in the lead-up to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It tells the story of this trailblazing artist who helped bring national attention to the experiences of residential school survivors.
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June 18, 2024 Halifax: City of Firsts in Canadian Art
New book by Ray Cronin offers an authoritative account of how the city’s fearless artistic innovations shaped the country’s visual arts landscape.
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May 8, 2024 Seeing Photography in Canada Through a New Lens: Groundbreaking New Book Explores 150 Years of Camera-Based Creativity
Photography in Canada, 1839–1989: An Illustrated History is the first-ever comprehensive work to consider how photography has revolutionized the way that we understand ourselves and our country.
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April 24, 2024 The Iconic and Epic Vision of Takao Tanabe
A new book on the 97-year-old groundbreaking Canadian artist explores his singular career and enduring legacy.
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March 7, 2024 Margaret Watkins: Life & Work
Written by Mary O’Connor, the new open-access online art book celebrates one of the most influential Canadian photographers of her generation and is available from the Art Canada Institute.
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May 27, 2022 Gathie Falk: Boundless Beauties of the Everyday from a West Coast Icon
An artist of unprecedented reinvention, Gathie Falk has mesmerized the Canadian art world for more than six decades with works in painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramic, installation, and performance. With diverse materials but a distinctly personal vision, she transforms everyday items like fruit, shoes, and furniture into objects of wonder. From modest Mennonite beginnings, Falk rose to fame in Vancouver in the mid-1960s and has continued to garner international acclaim.A new book explores her fascinating life and groundbreaking contributions to contemporary art.
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November 4, 2021 The Beauty and Anguish of War Art in Canada
For centuries, Canadian artists have recorded powerful images of military victories and defeats, political protest, and personal sacrifice. A new and richly illustrated book examines, for the first time, the profound role that conflict has played in shaping our nation’s art, history, and identity—venturing far beyond familiar Western representations.
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October 8, 2021 Maud Lewis: Redefining Canadian Folk Art
The first and only online art book on the extraordinary life and career of one of Canada’s most beloved painters explores how she transformed Canadian folk art. It also reveals how, despite serious poverty and physical challenges, Maud Lewis rose to national fame in the mid-1960s through her ability to convey brightly coloured scenes of joy and optimism.
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May 28, 2021 The Japanese Canadian Maverick of Modern Abstraction
Kazuo Nakamura grew up during a period of intense anti-Asian discrimination in Canada and was interned as an “enemy alien” during the Second World War, but by the late 1950s, the Painters Eleven member had earned international acclaim. Though he reached a level of success that was virtually unprecedented for any Japanese Canadian artist, his name and work have not achieved the recognition they deserve. A new book shines valuable light on the life and career of this groundbreaking figure in modern art.
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May 21, 2021 A Pandemic Life-line: Canada’s Only Kindergarten to Grade 12 Open-Access Art Education Program [English Press Release]
The Art Canada Institute’s ready-to-use, online educational program—available free of charge and in English and French—provides an invaluable resource for teachers
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May 21, 2021 Walter S. Allward: Life & Work, the new ACI book by Philip Dombowsky
Although Walter S. Allward shared the same virtuoso talent as Michelangelo, the visionary artist behind Canada’s iconic Vimy Memorial was nearly forgotten for many years. Now, on the anniversary of the battle that he famously commemorated, a new book documents the revered sculptor’s life and career.
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February 25, 2021 Suzy Lake: Life & Work, the new ACI book by Erin Silver
The mother of Canadian art activism, Suzy Lake (b.1947) was decades ahead of her time. Using her camera as a tool and herself as a model she has investigated issues of identity, gender, beauty, and aging—changing the course of art history in the process. Suzy Lake: Life & Work is part of the Art Canada Institute’s mission to provide free online educational resources honouring and exploring the work and creativity of those who have shaped and defined this country’s cultural landscape.
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December 14, 2020 Iljuwas Bill Reid: Life & Work, the new ACI book by Gerald McMaster
A vital contemporary perspective on the iconic Haida artist and activist, marking the first time a major book has been written on Reid by an Indigenous scholar and the centenary of his birth. The free online publication is part of the ACI’s mission to make Canadian art a contemporary conversation and to explore the legacy of those who have shaped this country’s cultural landscape.
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March 9, 2020 ACI announces the publication of Revision and Resistance
This new art book chronicles internationally acclaimed cree artist Kent Monkman's groundbreaking commission mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
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April 16, 2019 ACI announces the publication of Oviloo Tunnillie: Life & Work
Online art book spotlights celebrated Cape Dorset sculptor Oviloo Tunnillie, who defied Inuit social norms and carved her personal experiences into stone.
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March 19, 2019 ACI invites you to the lecture Gershon Iskowitz: Life & Legacy
On April 1, 2019, four leading art historians discuss the life and legacy of Gershon Iskowitz. This extraordinary artist survived Auschwitz and became one of Canada’s most acclaimed painters and cultural philanthropists.
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February 28, 2019 ACI announces the publication of Gershon Iskowitz: Life & Work
From Holocaust survivor to one of Canada’s most acclaimed painters and cultural philanthropists: Gershon Iskowitz: Life & Work chronicles one man’s remarkable trajectory from Auschwitz to famed Canadian artist.
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October 25, 2018 ACI announces the publication of Molly Lamb Bobak: Life & Work
New art book profiles the first woman to be appointed an official Canadian war artist.
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October 10, 2018 ACI announces the publication of Homer Watson: Life & Work
Homer Watson went from obscurity to international renown in 1880 when his painting, The Pioneer Mill, was purchased by Canada’s then-governor general as a gift for Queen Victoria.
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August 27, 2018 ACI announces the publication of Bertram Brooker: Life & Work
A pioneer of abstract art in Canada, Bertram Brooker was a self-taught polymath who defied the conventions of his time by taking a multi-pronged approach to artmaking and life.
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March 25, 2017 ACI announces the publication of William Kurelek: Life & Work
Meticulously crafted, Kurelek’s paintings range from whimsical, charming scenes inspired by his life in the Prairies to turbulent expressions of his inner mind and his personal, religious, and cultural concerns.
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January 4, 2017 ACI announces the publication of Shuvinai Ashoona: Life & Work
Shuvinai Ashoona’s singular style and bold artistic experimentation, including collaborations with Shary Boyle, has overturned stereotypical notions of Inuit art. Today she is an internationally renowned artist.
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September 10, 2016 ACI announces the publication of Greg Curnoe: Life & Work
Passionately and unapologetically Canadian, artist and activist Greg Curnoe (1936–1992) transformed his hometown of London, Ontario, into an important city for artistic production.
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August 30, 2015 ACI announces the publication of Oscar Cahén: Life & Work (English press release)
Before his tragic death at age 40, Oscar Cahén fled Nazi Germany, made his name as a celebrated North American magazine illustrator, and co-founded the Canadian abstract art collective Painters Eleven.
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