In many different parts of the world modern furniture elements have served as material expressions of power in the post-war era. They were often meant to express an international and in some respects apolitical modern language, but when placed in a sensitive setting or a meaningful architectural context, they were highly capable of negotiating or manipulating ideological messages. The agency of modern furniture was often less overt than that of political slogans or statements, but as the chapters in this book reveal, it had the potential of becoming a persuasive and malleable ally in very diverse politically charged arenas, including embassies, governmental ministries, showrooms, exhibitions, design schools, libraries, museums and even prisons. This collection of chapters examines the consolidating as well as the disrupting force of modern furniture in the global context between 1945 and the mid-1970s. The volume shows that key to understanding this phenomenon is the study of the national as well as transnational systems through which it was launched, promoted and received. While some chapters squarely focus on individual furniture elements as vehicles communicating political and social meaning, others consider the role of furniture within potent sites that demand careful negotiation, whether between governments, cultures, or buyer and seller. In doing so, the book explicitly engages different scholarly fields: design history, history of interior architecture, architectural history, cultural history, diplomatic and political history, postcolonial studies, tourism studies, material culture studies, furniture history, and heritage and preservation studies. Taken together, the narratives and case studies compiled in this volume offer a better understanding of the political agency of post-war modern furniture in its original historical context. At the same time, they will enrich current debates on reuse, relocation or reproduction of some of these elements.

This book presents the first overview of craft activity, as an integral part of Canadian culture between 1900 and 1950, and reviews the tone and focus of contemporaneous writing about craft. It explores the diversity of all aspects of craft, including makers, production, organization, education, and government involvement.

"By contrasting American experience with the Canadian context, which includes a unique Quebec identity and a Native dimension, Sandra Alfoldy argues that the development of organizations, advanced education for craftspeople, and exhibition and promotional opportunities have contributed to the distinct evolution of professional craft in Canada over the past forty years. Alfoldy focuses on 1964-74 and the debates over distinctions between professional, self-taught, and amateur craftspeople and between one-of-a-kind and traditional craft objects. She deals extensively with key people and events, including American philanthropist Aileen Osborn Webb and Canadian philanthropist Joan Chalmers, the foundation of the World Crafts Council (1964) and the Canadian Crafts Council (1974), the Canadian Fine Crafts exhibition at Expo 67, and the In Praise of Hands exhibition of 1974. Drawing upon a wealth of previously unexploited materials, this richly documented survey includes descriptions and illustrations of significant works and identifies the challenges that lie ahead for professional crafts in Canada."--Pub. desc

During periods of close collaboration, championed by figures like John Ruskin and William Morris, architecture and craft were referred to as "the allied arts." By the mid-twentieth century, however, it was more common for the two disciplines to be considered distinct professional fields, with architecture having little to do with studio craft. The Allied Arts investigates the history of the complex relationship between craft and architecture by examining the intersection of these two areas in Canadian public buildings. Sandra Alfoldy explains the challenges facing the development of the field of public craft and documents the largely ignored public craft commissions of the post-war era in Canada. The book highlights the global concerns of material, scale, form, ornament, and identity shared by architects and craftspeople. It also examines the ways in which the allied arts are mediated by institutions and the fragility of craft commissions once considered an integral part of the built environment. Considering a wide range of craftspeople, materials, and forms - from the ceramics of Jack Sures and Jordi Bonnet to the textile work of Mariette Rousseau Vermette and Carole Sabiston - Alfoldy celebrates the successes of architectural craftsmanship. The first work of its kind, The Allied Arts develops ideas about the complex relationship between architecture and craft that reach well beyond national boundaries.

From the Roaring Twenties and the Group of Seven to the Automatistes and the early Cold War, Canadian artists lived through and embodied an era of global tumult and change. With an interweaving of historical narrative, lavish illustrations, and writings by many of Canada's most revered cultural figures, Lora Senechal Carney illuminates the lives, perspectives, and works of the era's painters and provides glimpses of the sculptors, poets, dancers, critics, and filmmakers with whom they associated. Canadian Painters in a Modern World gives readers direct access to a carefully curated selection of writings, artworks, photos, and other documents that help to reconstruct the public spheres in which artists including Paul-Émile Borduas, Emily Carr, Alex Colville, Lawren Harris, David Milne, and Pegi Nicol MacLeod circulated. Each of the book’s eight chapters consists of a narrative about a key issue or debate, focusing on the relationship of art to politics and society, and on how these are negotiated in an individual's life. Relating artistic engagement with and responses to the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, and the Cold War, Senechal Carney discovers a common desire for new connections between art and life. Revealing continuities, ruptures, and watershed moments, Canadian Painters in a Modern World showcases artistic production within specific socio-political contexts to shed new light on Canadian art during three decades of conflict and crisis.

The history of women and art in Canada has often been celebrated as a story of progress from amateur to professional practice. Rethinking Professionalism challenges this narrative by questioning the assumptions that underlie the category of artistic professionalism, a construct as influential for artistic practice as it has been for art historical understanding. Through a series of in-depth studies, contributors examine changes to the infrastructure of the art world that resulted from a powerful discourse of professionalization that emerged in the late- nineteenth century. While many women embraced this new model, others fell by the wayside, barred from professional status by virtue of their class, their ethnicity, or the very nature of the artworks they produced. The richly illustrated essays in this collection depict the changing nature of the professional paradigm as it was experienced by women painters, photographers, craftspeople, architects, curators, gallery directors, and art teachers. In so doing, they demonstrate the ongoing power of feminist art history to disrupt patterns of thought that have become naturalized and, accordingly, invisible. Going beyond the narratives of recovery or exclusion that the category of professionalism has traditionally encouraged, Rethinking Professionalism explores the very consequences of telling the history of women's art in Canada through that lens. Contributors include Annmarie Adams (McGill University), Alena Buis (Queen's University), Sherry Farrell Racette (University of Manitoba), Cynthia Hammond (Concordia University), Kristina Huneault (Concordia University), Loren Lerner (Concordia University), Lianne McTavish (University of Alberta), Kirk Niergarth (Mount Royal University), Mary O'Connor (McMaster University), Sandra Paikowsky (Concordia University), Ruth B. Phillips (Carleton University), Jennifer Salahub (Alberta College of Art & Design), and Anne Whitelaw (Concordia University).