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Biography & Autobiography Artists, Architects, Photographers

Joyce Wieland

A Life in Art

by (author) Iris Nowell

Publisher
ECW Press
Initial publish date
Sep 2001
Category
Artists, Architects, Photographers
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781550224764
    Publish Date
    Sep 2001
    List Price
    $19.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781554900558
    Publish Date
    Sep 2001
    List Price
    $11.95

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Description

Joyce Wieland triumphed over what she called “obscene poverty” to achieve international celebrity as a painter, collagist, quiltmaker, and filmmaker, celebrated as Canada’s most important woman artist next to Emily Carr. Her art portrays strikingly Canadian themes of environmental issues, historical passages, and aboriginal rights in buoyant, satirical images. To make her distinctive, highly personal art, Wieland uses toys, paper cut-outs, wood, glass, and pieces of her panties and dresses just as boldly and felicitously as she uses oils, watercolors, and pencils. Some of her most famous works are quilts, such as Reason Over Passion and Confedspread. She made underground films long before Andy Warhol did, producing a total of 16. Joyce Wieland achieved acclaim through unstinting courage, vivacity, and her off-the-wall humor. She was known for tucking away her secrets in her work. Author Iris Nowell has uncovered some of these secrets through primary sources, such as Joyce’s friends and family, and through her own perspective of having known Joyce for many years. This intimate, rollicking, poignant biography uncovers Joyce Wieland’s life as she lived it, intimately and fully?through the 1950s “Dark Ages of Art” in Toronto, for much of the 1960s in New York’s grungy artist’s loft community and the underground film scene, and back to Toronto for the most productive, stunning years of her life.

About the author

Iris Nowell is the author of six books as well as countless newspaper and magazine articles on topics ranging from sports to social issues. She was the first of the new generation of women to write on the sports pages of The Globe and Mail. Her subsequent work includes the well-received Women Who Give Away Millions: Portraits of Canadian Philanthropists and the artist biography Joyce Wieland: A Life in Art and her memoir Hot Breakfast for Sparrows: My Life with Harold Town. Nowell lives in Toronto.

Iris Nowell's profile page