Canoe: A Collection of Canadian Art, by Anne Ewen and Rod Green. Figure 1 Publishing, www.figure1publishing.com. 182 pp., illus. $50.00 CAD
Canoe: A Collection of Canadian Art is a book-length catalog of the personal art collection of Girt and Scott McCreath. The collection, whose unifying concept is the book’s title, was begun in 2006 and contains 80 pieces of art relating to the North American canoe as rendered primarily by Canadian artists. The media represented are varied, and include oils and watercolor, sculpture, printmaking, carving, glass, and ceramics. The canoes depicted are mostly wood, bark, or skin, with a few Northwest Coast carved log canoes also present. The book is published by Figure 1, a self-described hybrid publishing house whereby authors or corporate partners typically contribute to production and printing costs. Some of Canada’s best artists are represented in the collection, including The Group of Seven, a collective whose members concentrated their efforts on landscape painting and the Canadian wilderness.
The authors are Anne Ewen and Rod Green. Ewen is a curator and consultant who has held various positions in Canadian museums over the years. She was the director and chief curator at The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff, Alberta. Rod Green is a former limnologist who joined the Master’s Gallery (a commercial art gallery) in Calgary, Alberta, in 1977, eventually becoming a partner and president until 2016, when he retired. Green is currently a board member at The Whyte; both authors believe the McCreath’s collection is “the most significant collection of canoe art in Canada.”