Canadian Artists from World War II to the Present: A Survey  
     
     
 
Introduction :: Québec and Ontario: Two Solitudes Reflected in Art :: Abstraction on the Prairies: Regina Five :: Nationalism Reborn, and Pop Art Explored: the 1960s :: Outside of the Mainstream: The Folk Artist in Canada :: People and Places: on Either Coast :: Other Aspects from The 1970s to the Present: Pluralism and Diversity :: Artist-run Centers :: Feminist and post-Feminist Perspectives :: Performance, Installation, Video Art, and Beyond :: Additional Resources for 20th-Century and Contemporary Art in Canada :: HOME
  
     
   
  Introduction  
     
  Canadian artists working in the past half century have practiced in the popular art idioms of the period—Abstraction, Minimalism, Pop Art, Postmodernism, and Feminism, to name only a few. In what ways, therefore, can Canadian art be distinguished from that of other countries? Despite the obvious reality of overgeneralizing, one might say that Canadian artists working in the latter half of the twentieth century until the present day have typically oscillated between two poles—nationalism and internationalism. At the outset of the period, during the late 1940s, the continuing influence of the predominantly landscape-based Group of Seven was still being felt (A.J. Casson, the youngest member of the Group, only died in 1992), and some felt that the only logical expression for Canadian art should still be expressed in landscape painting. At the conclusion of the period, no vestiges of a national style remain: Canadian art has become as diverse as its peoples.

In retrospect, it was untenable to maintain that a single school could represent the vast country of Canada, with all its diverse regions and peoples, both First Nations and immigrants from all corners of the world. As early as the late 1920s, had critics pointed out that the landscape of the Group of Seven, despite conscious attempts to be national in scope, was based primarily in Ontario, and that this echoed the political dominance of Ontario in national politics (Ontario is the economic engine of Canada and an old adage has it that "what’s good for Toronto is good for the country"). Objecting to the Group of Seven’s concentration on Ontario landscape, and Ontario’s dominance in the arts, artists elsewhere in Canada sought to express themselves more personally, and to reflect their regional identities. This trend that became particularly notable in Atlantic Canada, where many strong painters emerged, as discussed below.

Then too, another socio-political factor had an immense bearing on Canadian life in general and Canadian art in particular. This was the traditional rivalry between Ontario and Québec, where a vocal and significant French-speaking minority lives (approximately 25 percent of the Canadian population). People from elsewhere need to understand the delicate balance that has always existed between French-and English-speaking cultures of Canada. In 1945, author Hugh MacClennan won the Governor General’s award for fiction for Two Solitudes—a phrase that later was used as a short hand to describe the linguistic gulf between English- and French-speaking Canada. Thus one can rightly speak of "English" and "French" Canada—at least until after World War II, when immigrants from other countries whose mother tongues were neither French nor English changed the delicate balance between the two linguistic groups. So it is not surprising, but nevertheless interesting, to note the increasing influence of artists in recent decades who have no interest in exploring the nationalistic and linguistic issues that preoccupied their forebears.

Finally, the Canadian governments’ arts policies need to be noted, particularly the Canada Council, founded 1957, which has offered grants, exhibition, and publicity to many Canadian artists. Artists supported by the Canada Council frequently have a theoretical bent; this has made them ignored or unpopular among the general public. This provides an interesting contrast to the Group of Seven, whose attempts to create a national school meant that reproductions of their paintings were to be found in most Canadian schools well into the 1940s. It is not easy to imagine identifying a single artist today on whose works Canadians could agree enough to include that artist’s works in schools. Plurality and personal expression and social and political comment have replaced a single national expression—and increasing fragmentation, rather than any trend to national identity through the arts, seems to be the order of the day.



  
     
     
 
Introduction :: Québec and Ontario: Two Solitudes Reflected in Art :: Abstraction on the Prairies: Regina Five :: Nationalism Reborn, and Pop Art Explored: the 1960s :: Outside of the Mainstream: The Folk Artist in Canada :: People and Places: on Either Coast :: Other Aspects from The 1970s to the Present: Pluralism and Diversity :: Artist-run Centers :: Feminist and post-Feminist Perspectives :: Performance, Installation, Video Art, and Beyond :: Additional Resources for 20th-Century and Contemporary Art in Canada :: HOME