An all-encompassing view of the life and work of one of Canada’s greatest living artists
Michael Snow is rightly recognized as one of the greatest Canadian artists. In a productive, lengthy career, he has, in a wide variety of genres and media, asked (and often answered) some of the most vexing and important questions in the history of art. During his lifetime, the notion of what constitutes a work of art has undergone many changes, and his work has consistently been at the forefront of that discussion.
Michael Snow: Lives and Works examines all aspects of the artist’s work and provides a guide to understanding its subtleties and complexities. The book also charts the life of Snow: his early years as a student and artist in Toronto, his stay in New York City, his turbulent marriage to Joyce Wieland, his reputation as a lady’s man, and his adventures in movie making and improvised music.
In many ways, Snow is the visual artist as intellectual: his images are vibrant and compelling, but so are the ideas behind them. Ultimately, his work is about perception. What do we really see when we look at a work of art? What is the act of looking all about? What exactly is a work of art?
Michael Snow: Lives and Works is a personal and intimate portrait of an artist who has helped shaped the face of Canadian art in our time.
Table of Content
List of Figures
Introduction
Part One 1928–1962
One: Origins
Two: Conversion
Three: Jazz Band
Four: A Man Drawing Lines
Five: Intimations
Six: Gestures
Seven: Drawn Out
Eight: A Lot of Near Mrs.
Nine: Surveying
Part Two 1962–1970
Ten: Cool City
Eleven: Eye and Ear Control
Twelve: More Snowgirls
Thirteen: Wavelengths
Fourteen: New Surfaces
Fifteen: Canadians in Manhattan
Part Three 1970–1979
Sixteen: The Presence of the Past
Seventeen: The Painterly Photograph
Eighteen: The Canadian WIlderness
Nineteen: A Giant Sentence
Twenty: No Longer in Play
Part Four 1979–1994
Twenty-One: Between Alchemy and Chemistry
Twenty-Two: The Everyday
Twenty-Three: The Presence of the Absent
Twenty-Four: Audiences
Part Five 1994–Present
Twenty-Five: Blockbuster
Twenty-Six: Sound Shaping
Twenty-Seven: A New Painterliness
Twenty-Eight: Repeat Offences
Twenty-Nine: Reshaping Fragments
Thirty: New-Found Things
Thirty-One: Smoke and Mirrors
Acknowledgements
Short-Titles
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the author
James King is the author of six novels and ten biographies, including books on David Milne, William Blake, Margaret Laurence, Jack Mc Clelland, Farley Mowat, and Lawren Harris. His biography of Herbert Read, The Last Modern, was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, James lives in Hamilton, Ontario.
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