"Andrew Hunter has looked with fresh eyes at [Colville's] paintings and made a coherent argument that Colville deserves to be understood far beyond the normal borders of the art world." — Robert Fulford, The National Post

This magnificent, best-selling volume is now available in a deluxe paper-bound edition. The original hardcover edition sold more than 15,000 copies.

Colville both honours the legacy of an iconic Canadian artist and explores the contemporary reverberations of his work. Colville was known for being his own man. His paintings depict an elusive tension, a deep sense of danger, capturing moments perpetually on the edge of the unknown. A painter, printmaker, and war artist who drew his inspiration from the world around him, Colville transformed the seemingly mundane events of everyday life into archetypes of the modern condition.

In this beautifully designed volume, Andrew Hunter organizes Colville thematically, incorporating interludes that explore the relationship between Colville's work and the filmmaking of Wes Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, and Sarah Polley, as well as his influence on writers such as Alice Munro and even cartoonist David Collier. The book is rounded out with more than 100 colour reproductions of Colville's paintings, spanning the entirety of his career, including Horse and Train, 1953; To Prince Edward Island, 1965; Woman in Bathtub, 1973; and Target Pistol and Man, 1980.

Andrew Hunter is an accomplished curator, artist, writer, and educator. He joined the AGO’s curatorial team on May 1, 2013. He is the co-founder and co-principal of DodoLab, an international program of community collaboration and interdisciplinary creative research.

Born in Hamilton and a graduate of Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (NSCAD), Hunter has held many curatorial positions, including roles at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Kamloops Art Gallery, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and Charlottetown’s Confederation Centre Art Gallery to name a few. He has taught at OCAD University and the University of Waterloo (Faculty of Arts and School of Architecture) 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, Dubrovnik Museum of Modern Art (Croatia), The Rooms Art Gallery (Newfoundland), the Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff Centre), the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Yukon Art Centre, the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (Concordia University), and with Proboscis (London, UK).

Hunter has contributed to numerous exhibitions including acclaimed retrospectives Tom Thomson and Emily Carr: New Perspectives. Other major projects include The Other Landscape; Come A Singin'; Northern Passage: The Arctic Voyages of Jackson, Harris and Banting and The Road: Constructing the Alaska Highway (Art Gallery of Alberta); To a Watery Grave and Dark Matter: Remembering the Great War (Confederation Centre Art Gallery); Lawren Harris: A Painter’s Progress (Americas Society Art Gallery); Ding Ho Group of 7 (with Gu Xiong, McMichael Canadian Art Collection and Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon); and Thou Shalt Not Steal: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun and Emily Carr (Vancouver Art Gallery)

Andrew Hunter's profile page

"Splendid. ... show[s] the continued relevance of Colville’s imagery — characterised as it is by edginess, unease, and a tension between specificity and universality — to contemporary society."

<i>British Journal of Canadian Studies</i>

"More than any other artist in Canada, Colville has a galvanizing, sea-to-shining-sea appeal."

<i>Toronto Star</i>