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Biography & Autobiography Artists, Architects, Photographers

Maud Lewis

Creating an Icon

by (author) Ray Cronin

Publisher
Gaspereau Press Ltd.
Initial publish date
Apr 2020
Category
Artists, Architects, Photographers
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781554472062
    Publish Date
    Apr 2020
    List Price
    $21.95

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Description

More than any other Canadian artist, Nova Scotian folk artist Maud Lewis (1901–70) is defined as much by her life as by her art. While her story was one of poverty, hardship, physical disability, and chronic pain, it was also one of triumph of character and creativity over circumstance. Catering primarily to the tourists who drove past her tiny house each summer, Lewis’s bright, primitive paintings of oxen, cats, boats, and rural scenes were both a response and an invitation to nostalgia. In this essay, Ray Cronin explores how Lewis’s style and imagery became iconic, synonymous both with the way Nova Scotians’s viewed themselves and the way the province would promote itself to the world.

 

About the author

Ray Cronin détient un baccalauréat en arts visuels du Nova Scotia College of Art and Design et une maîtrise en arts visuels de l'Université de Windsor. Cronin est directeur général du Musée des beaux-arts de la Nouvelle-Écosse où il a occupé différents postes depuis 2001, notamment conservateur de l'art contemporain et premier conservateur du Prix artistique Sobey. Auteur de plusieurs essais pour des catalogues et de nombreux articles parusdans des magazines d'art canadiens et américains, Cronin a reçu en 2000 le prix Cristina-Sabat de la critique d'art. Parmi ses projets d'exposition récents et à venir, mentionnons des rétrospectives de l'œuvre de Thierry Delva, Nancy Edell, Chris Hanson et Hendrika Sonnenberg, ainsi que les expositions itinérantes Graeme Patterson : Woodrow et Arena : The Art of Hockey.

Ray Cronin's profile page