The Cause of Art: Professionalizing the Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador

The Cause of Art explores the history of the Memorial University Art Gallery in Newfoundland and Labrador, highlighting the struggle between recreational painters and curators over the gallery's direction and the role of the state and university in the modernization of the province.

Format: Hardback
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: 30 May 2024
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Newfoundland and Labrador had a rich oral culture but lacked a significant visual art scene in 1949. After joining the Canadian federation, recreational painters worked to establish a platform for art exhibition. The Cause of Art chronicles the efforts of advocates, curators, and professional artists who laid the groundwork for an artistic community in the province. The Memorial University Art Gallery became a battleground between recreational painters who sought to express their creativity and develop a distinct Newfoundland art style and curators who wanted artists to engage with the Canadian art market and international artistic movements. The book delves into the history of passionate and influential curators and cultural administrators who fought for control of the gallery. It explores how they navigated competing notions of professionalization and diverse political and aesthetic perspectives. Drawing on extensive archival research in previously unexplored collections and oral interviews with key informants, this book examines a cultural institution that is widely regarded as a catalyst for the cultural renaissance in late twentieth-century Newfoundland and Labrador. As a result, The Cause of Art sheds light on the relationship between the state and the university during a pivotal period of modernization in the province.

Weight: 600g
Dimension: 236 x 160 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781487555344