The long-awaited biography of one of Canada’s most intriguing and beguiling artists.
Do artists really thrive in big cities, or do they just learn to imitate New York? Is it a contradiction for an artist to be fiercely local and profoundly identified with international art movements? If the brilliant colourist and regionalist pioneer Greg Curnoe stood for any one thing, it was making trouble. An intriguing rebel throughout his life, he challenged ideas about what art should be, and pushed it in radical new directions — including away from Toronto, a city he rejected while succeeding masterfully in its galleries.
His untimely death in 1992 cut short a career of constant reinvention. This first biography of Curnoe recaptures in vivid detail the public and personal life of an iconoclast who was called a “walking autobiography, ” as his work seemed to document his endless struggle against many of the core tenets of the art of his time. An anti-establishment firebrand and a fierce opponent of American dominance in Canadian culture, Curnoe, in his conceptual practice, constructed a stunning body of work that remains a hallmark in late-twentieth-century Canadian art.
Table of Content
List of Images
Preface
One: “Snow White’s Cottage” (1936–1949)
Two: “Curnoe’s Inferno” (1949–1956)
Three: “Gregor” (1956–1960)
Four: “No Ideas But In Things” (1960–1962)
Five: Being Tickled (1961–1964)
Six: The Vision Of Dr. Bucke (1964–1965)
Seven: Souwesto (1966)
Eight: Fracas (1967–1968)
Nine: London Calling (1968–1970)
Ten: Painting By Numbers (1969–1971)
Eleven: “A Walking Autobiography” (1971–1976)
Twelve: New Beginnings (1974–1979)
Thirteen: Never Have A Retrospective! (1980–1982)
Fourteen: What’s Good For The Goose Is Good For The Gander (1983–1988)
Fifteen: Life Interrupted (1989–1992)
Acknowledgements
Notes
Selected Bibliography
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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