Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century is a survey of the richest, most controversial and perhaps most thoroughly confusing centuries in the whole history of the visual arts in Canada - the period from 1900 to the present. Murray shows how, beginning with Tonalism at the start of the century, new directions in art emerged - starting with our early Modernists, among them Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. Today, Modernism has lost its dominance. Artists, critics, and the public alike are confronted by a scene of unprecedented variety and complexity. Murray discusses the social and political events of the century in combination with the cultural context; movements, ideas, attitudes, and styles; the important groups in Canadian art, and major and minor artists and their works. Fully documented, well researched and written with clarity and over four hundred illustrations in both black-and-white and colour, Murray’s book is essential for understanding Canadian art of this century. As an introduction, it is excellent in both its scope and intelligence.

Joan Murray, an independent curator and art historian, is considered one of the most accessible of Canadian art writers and has studied and exhibited Tom Thomson for four decades. Since the late 1960s, she has been a curator of several institutions, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, and director of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa (1974-99) and the McMichael Canadian Art Gallery in Kleinburg (2005-6). Murray was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in 1992 and has been honoured with the Senior Award from the Association of Cultural Executives, the Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Ontario Association of Art Galleries and the Order of Ontario. She lives in Toronto, Ontario

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"This stylish, sure-footed survey of Canadian art as it moved through our century will delight those who know the subject well and pleasantly educate those who are new to it. Joan Murray's knowledge and intelligence make her the perfect guide for a tour of Canadian Modernity."

Robert Fulford