One of the most vibrant artists of her generation, Pegi Nicol MacLeod was a charismatic bohemian whose expressive images of the contemporary world were an essential component of Canadian modernism during the 1930s and 1940s. In Pegi by Herself, the first full-length biography of Nicol MacLeod, Laura Brandon draws on the artist's remarkable autobiographical paintings and extraordinarily vivid letters. Remembered as much for her colourful life, love affairs, and significant friendships with Vincent Massey, Norman Bethune, Frank Scott, and Graham Spry as for her artistic achievement, Nicol MacLeod exhibited successfully and received significant commissions from the National Gallery of Canada to paint the wartime women's services. She was honoured there with a memorial exhibition following her early death in 1949. Lavishly illustrated, Pegi by Herself accompanies Pegi Nicol MacLeod: A Life in Art, a touring retrospective exhibition of the artist's work that opens at the Carleton University Art Gallery in February 2005, and the premiere of an NFB film biography.

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At the turn of the twentieth century numerous Canadian architects, artisans and artists set out to modify the aesthetic and social environment through the integration of the arts. Painters produced murals; architects designed furniture; clubs formed to bring together writers, artists and architects; collectors and governments commissioned paintings, furnishings and sculpture for public and private buildings; photography rivaled painting; and crafts became applied design. Building on both the Beaux-Arts movement in France and the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain and the United States, Canadian art practitioners met the challenge of obtaining patronage - which had until then looked abroad - to create a unique aesthetic that shot through all aspects of daily life. Their contributions fueled the economic growth that marked these prosperous years. Punctuated with numerous illustrations, original essays detail how architecture, monumental sculpture, urban planning, mural and decorative painting, graphic design, decorative arts and photography came together in an unprecedented fashion in this young country. Featured are not only the notable achievements but also the many creative and thoughtful projects that were proposed but never realized.0Exhibition: National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa, Canada (8.11.2013-2.3.2014).