Published to coincide with a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Jack Chambers: Light, Spirit, Time, Place and Life is the first major volume to be published on the work of Jack Chambers, one of Canada's most recognized and broadly influential artists. Featuring a selection of some 100 works including paintings, drawings, prints, and films, and materials from the artist's extensive papers, the book focuses on Chambers's own unique brand of "perceptive realism," his use of light, place, time, and spirit, all of which were central to his work.
A brilliant draughtsman and remarkable painter, Chambers spend his early adulthood travelling and studying in Europe, where he met Pablo Picasso. When he returned to his hometown of London, Ontario, in 1961, he found himself at the centre of a vibrant art scene that would become the backdrop for his films and the surrealist-influenced works based on his dream-like evocations of memory.
This book draws on the large collection of the artist's work held by the AGO. Featuring more than 100 colour reproductions, an extensive chronology, and a complete catalogue of the AGO's collection of Chambers's artworks, the volume also includes critical essays by Sarah Milroy, Christopher Dewdney, Mark Cheetham, Gillian Mackay, Ross Woodman and curator-writer Dennis Reid, as well as unique personal reflections in a variety forms by writers Michael Ondaatje and Susan Crean, and painters John Scott and Eric Fischl.
Dewdney, Christopher: - Christopher Dewdney has been writing art criticism for more than three decades. He is the author of four books of non-fiction as well as eleven books of poetry. His most recent non-fiction title is Soul of the World: Unlocking the Secrets of Time. Dewdney teaches creative writing and poetics at the Glendon Campus of York University in Toronto.
Milroy, Sarah: - Sarah Milroy is the former editor and publisher of Canadian Art magazine and a co-founder of the Canadian Art Foundation. From 2001 to 2010, she served as chief art critic of the Globe and Mail. Since leaving that post, she continues to freelance for the Globe and Mail, Canadian Art, Walrus, and Border Crossings and has contributed essays to catalogues on the work of Canadian artists Greg Curnoe, Jack Chambers, Gathie Falk, Fred Herzog, and Mary Pratt. She lives in Toronto.
Reid, Dennis: - Dennis Reid is a professor of art history at the University of Toronto, where he has taught since 1977. He also worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario from 1979 until 2010, latterly as director of collections and research, and at the National Gallery of Canada from 1967, principally as curator of Post-Confederation Canadian Art (1971 to 1979). The author of numerous publications on Canadian art, including A Concise History of Canadian Painting (third edition forthcoming), he became a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998.
Woodman, Ross: - Ross Woodman, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Department of English, University of Western Ontario, is author of The Apocalyptic Vision in the Poetry of Shelley: Sanity, Madness, Transformation and Revelation and Knowledge, all with University of Toronto Press. He also authored Chambers, edited by Dennis Reid for Coach House Press and numerous articles on Canadian art and Romantic literature.
