Canada’s oldest independent publisher has the books you want to read

Goose Lane Books have come out with their fall line-up and there are lots of fabulous Canadian books for all readers. If you feel the pull from your artistic side you can explore the work of Alex Colville or see some of the world class works from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton or get immersed in a superb book on Inuit art. If you love travel and history you can pick up Restigouche to learn about this spectacular region of New Brunswick or read ‘From the Forest to the Sea’ about the spectacular work of British Columbia’s Emily Carr.The choices are endless. Here are some of our favourites. Read em and reap!

Author: Philip Lee  Paperback: 272 pages  ISBN: 9781773100883

The Restigouche River flows through the remote border region between the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick, its magically transparent waters, soaring forest hillsides, and population of Atlantic salmon creating one of the most storied wild spaces on the continent. In Restigouche, Philip Lee follows ancient portage routes into the headwaters of the river, travelling by canoe to explore the extraordinary history of the river and the people of the valley. They include the Mi'gmaq, who have lived in the Restigouche valley for thousands of years; the descendants of French Acadian, Irish, and Scottish settlers; and some of the wealthiest people in the world who for more than a century have used the river as an exclusive wilderness retreat. The people of the Restigouche have long been both divided and united by a remarkable river that each day continues to assert itself, despite local and global industrial forces that now threaten its natural systems and the survival of the salmon. In the deep pools and rushing waters of the Restigouche, in this place apart in a rapidly changing natural world, Lee finds a story of hope about how to safeguard wild spaces and why doing so is the most urgent question of our time.

About the author: Philip Lee teaches journalism at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. He began his career as an investigative reporter in Atlantic Canada and is the author of numerous books, including Home Pool: The Fight to Save the Atlantic Salmon. He is a passionate defender of rivers and the people who love them.

Authors: Kenojuak Ashevak and Tim Pitsiulak  Paperback: 160 pages  ISBN: 9781773100913

Tunirrusiangit, "their gifts" or "what they gave" in Inuktitut, celebrates the achievements of two remarkable artists who challenged the parameters of tradition while consistently articulating a compelling vision of the Inuit world view. Published to coincide with a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, opening on June 16, 2020 and continuing until late August, Tunirrusiangit features more than 60 reproductions of paintings, drawings, and documentary photographs. Completing the book are essays by contemporary artists and curators Jocelyn Piirainen, Anna Hudson, Georgiana Uhlyarik, Koomuatuk Curley, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, and Taqralik Partridge that address both the past and future of Inuit identity.

About the authors: Kenojuak Ashevak (1927-2013), an Order of Canada recipient, is known as the "grandmother of Inuit art," Famous for her fluid graphic storytelling and stunning use of magic markers, she quickly became a defining figure and one of the first Indigenous artists to be embraced as a Canadian contemporary artist.

Ashevak's legacy inspired her nephew, Timootee (Tim) Pitsiulak (1967-2016) to take up drawing at the Kinngait Studios. In his relatively short career, he became a popular figure, known for drawing animal figures with a hunter's precision and capturing the technological presence of the South in Nunavut.

Author: Terry Graff  Paperback: 240 pages  ISBN: 9780864926425

Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery is a major publication with 75 colour plates and 60 black-and-white photographs of the exhibition from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Along with a complete catalogue of artworks, Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery features an overview and history of the historic collection, along with curatorial commentary on each work of art by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery's Curator and Deputy Director, and curator of the exhibition, Terry Graff. Further, it includes important essays by five internationally respected art historians, scholars, and curators, Elliot King, James Hamilton, Richard Calvocoressi, Angus Stewart, and Katharine Eustace, that focus on several key works of art.

Bernard Riordon, director and CEO of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, provides a foreword and timely essay documenting the recently resolved legal battle with the Beaverbrook Foundation (UK) over ownership of several works. Elliot King, art historian and leading specialist on the work of Salvador Dalí and curator of the recent exhibition Dalí: The Late Work at the High Museum of Art, examines Dalí's monumental painting Santiago El Grande. James Hamilton, curator and art historian, who has written several books, lectured internationally, and curated several important exhibitions on JMW Turner, examines Turner's Fountain of Indolence. Richard Calvocoressi, Director of the Henry Moore Foundation and former Director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, provides special insight into Lucien Freud's Hotel Bedroom. Angus Stewart, independent curator known for his many exhibitions at the Olympia London fine art and antiques fair, including the major 2003 project that marked the centenary of artist Graham Sutherland's birth, examines important Sutherland works, such as Helena Rubinstein, Studies for Churchill, and Portrait of Lord Beaverbrook. Katharine Eustace, art historian and curator, whose publications include Continuity and Change: Twentieth Century Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, provides a thoughtful essay on Walter Sickert in relation to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery's Sickert paintings, such as H.M. King Edward VIII.

About the author: Terry Graff is one of Canada’s foremost curators and senior arts administrators, as well as a gifted artist, writer, and educator. Before accepting his current position as Deputy Director, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Curator at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, he served as Director and CEO of Saskatoonès renowned Mendel Art Gallery. He has also served as Director and Chief Curator of the Rodman Hall Arts Centre in St. Catharines, Ontario, Director and Chief Curator of the Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and Education Curator at the Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario. The author of numerous publications and the curator of over 150 exhibitions.Terry Graff’s creative vision and expertise in the visual arts have uniquely shaped each of the galleries where he has served.

Author: Andrew Hunter  Paperback: 168 pages  ISBN: 9780864928962

Colville is a book like no other. Designed to accompany an exhibition at the Art Gallery Ontario, Colville honours the iconic Canadian artist's legacy and explores the continuing impact of his work on film, literature, and music. Known for painting decidedly personal subject matter, Alex Colville's painstakingly precise images depict an elusive tension, capturing moments perpetually on the edge of change and the unknown. Featuring more than 100 reproductions, Colville will feature works assembled from museums and private collections nationwide. Spanning the entirety of Colville's career, the works will include many works that have never been have never been reproduced before this moment as well as his most iconic paintings, including Horse and Train, 1953; To Prince Edward Island, 1965; Woman in Bathtub, 1973; and Target Pistol and Man, 1980.

Colville was a painter, printmaker, and war veteran who drew his inspiration from the world around him, transforming the seemingly mundane figures and events of everyday life into archetypes of the modern condition. He was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1982 and won a Governor General's Visual and Media Arts Award in 2003.

About the author: Andrew Hunter is an accomplished curator, artist, writer, and educator, who is currently the Senior Curator at the Art Gallery of Guelph. Hunter was previously the Frederik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, where he produced major exhibitions and publications including Every Now Then: Reframing Nationhood, In the Ward: Lawren Harris, Toronto & the Idea of North, and Colville.

Born in Hamilton and a graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Hunter has held curatorial positions across Canada, including at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Hamilton. He has taught at the Ontario College of Art and Design University and the University of Waterloo and lectured on curatorial practice across Canada, the United States, England, China, and Croatia. As an artist and independent curator, Hunter has exhibited widely, including solo projects at the National Gallery of Canada, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Dubrovnik Museum of Modern Art, and with Proboscis in the UK. Hunter is also the co-founder, with Lisa Hirmer, of the international creative research project DodoLab.

Authors: Sarah Milroy & Ian Dejardin  Paperback: 304 pages  ISBN: 9780864928696

Emily Carr captured the natural and cultural landscapes of British Columbia like no other artist before or after her. This major volume, designed to accompany an exhibition organized by the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, gathers work from all phases of this extraordinary artist's career — from her delicate early watercolours of the 1890s to her expressive hybrids of the 1930s and 1940s, which carry European and North American Modernist traditions with the formal stylizations of Indigenous design.

Carr's lifelong fascination with British Columbia's original inhabitants transformed her. Visiting First Nations villages up and down the coast, she absorbed the essence of the place she loved so well. Those experiences changed her life and charged her work, inspiring her imagination.

This monumental volume features more than 100 colour reproductions of Carr's work, including some of her most renowned paintings, in dialogue with dozens of indigenous artifacts from the Pacific Northwest: historic masks, baskets, and ceremonial objects by Haida, Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Salish, Tlingit, and Tsimshian makers. Drawn from public and private collections, including the British Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum, Horniman Museum and Gardens, and the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, these artifacts illuminate Carr's connections to Indigenous cultures.

From the Forest to the Sea features written contributions by Toronto writer and art critic Sarah Milroy; Ian Dejardin, Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery (London) acclaimed contemporary artists Peter Doig and Jessica Stockholder; leading Carr scholars Ian Thom, Charles Hill, Kathryn Bridge, and Gerta Moray; Haida hereditary chief and master carver James Hart; Kwakwaka'wakw artists Corrine Hunt and Marianne Nicolson; and anthropologists Robert Storrie and Karen Duffek. Together, they illuminate Carr's immense legacy and the connections to First Nations culture that inspired her work.

About the authors: Sarah Milroy is Chief Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. A highly respected art critic and exhibition curator, she has contributed to more than a dozen books on art, including Mary Pratt, From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia, and David Milne: Modern Painting.

Ian A.C. Dejardin is an art historian and director of the Dulwich Picture Gallery in Dulwich, southeast London, England. He succeeded Desmond Shawe-Taylor as director in 2005 and was previously a chief curator at the gallery from 1998.

Author: Allen Smutylo  Paperback: 258 pages  ISBN: 9781773101330

In the shadows of the Altai Mountains live the Kazakh nomads of western Mongolia. These hard-living nomads survive on windswept steppes, grazing their herds and keeping an ancient practice alive: hunting not with traps or guns, but on horseback with golden eagles.

The Mongolian Chronicles recounts a story of this untamed world, seen through the eyes of artist, writer, and traveller Allen Smutylo. Smutylo lived with seven eagle hunters and their families for several weeks over two years, affording him rare insight into a disappearing culture. His extraordinary narrative is set within the context of Mongolia's turbulent past — the long shadow cast by the empire of Genghis Khan, the deprivations of early twentieth century warlords-cum-mystics — and its protean present, where ancient customs and shamanistic beliefs exist among an increasingly urbanized people.

Smutylo's vivid prose and powerful artwork portray a Mongolia of contradictions and extremes. Readers will encounter a country with a vast wilderness that nonetheless has one of the most polluted capitals on earth; a modern economy in which tent-dwelling nomads still rely on their animals for survival; a people unchanged for millennia, yet recognizing that their way of life may disappear with their generation.

About the author: Allen Smutylo's work as a writer and artist is informed by his experience of travelling and living in some of the most remote places of the world. His first book, Wild Places, Wild Hearts, which recounts his time among the nomads of the Himalayas, won the Best Travel Adventure Book Award at the Banff Mountain Book Festival. His second book, The Memory of Water shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction and the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, draws on his travels along the world's waterways, including the Canadian Arctic, the South Pacific, and the Ganges. His most recent book, The Mongolian Chronicles was longlisted for the 2020 RBC Taylor Prize.

Smutylo's paintings and etchings have been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Canada and abroad and are included in more than 300 public and corporate collections. He lives in Big Bay, Ontario.

Author: Nancy Campbell  Paperback: 174 pages  ISBN: 9781773100692

When Annie Pootoogook won the Sobey Art Award in 2006, she cracked the glass ceiling for Inuit art, securing its place in contemporary Canadian art discourse and establishing herself as an artist of international importance. Her achievement sparked critical discussion around contemporary art as well as the absence, and growing presence, of Inuit art: an important conversation that continues to this day.

The life and death of Annie Pootoogook is a story of national significance. The complex narratives weaving through her short life speak to possibility and heartbreak, truth and reconciliation, the richness of community, and the depths of tragedy. These complexities are recorded in her arresting pencil crayon compositions. Her frank, sometimes challenging, sometimes amusing images of everyday life, acutely observed and marked by a linear control as taut as a wire, declare her as a major contributor to the landscape of contemporary Inuit art.

Annie Pootoogook: Cutting Ice accompanied an exhibition organized by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the gallery of record for works on paper from Annie Pootoogook’s Inuit community of Kinngait (Cape Dorset). Under the direction of Nancy Campbell, this publication and the exhibition serve to commemorate the life and work of a remarkable artist after her tragically early death.

About the author: Nancy Campbell is an independent curator of Inuit and Canadian contemporary art. She has curated exhibitions for the Liverpool Biennial, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, and McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Her books include Shuvinai Ashoona: Life & Work, Annie Pootoogook: Cutting Ice, and Itee Pootoogook: Hymns to the Silence.