A History of Art in Alberta: 1905 - 1970

This book provides, for the first time, a comprehensive coverage of the development of art in Alberta from 1905 to 1970. Written for the Province's 2005 Centennial, this book documents 165 of Alberta's first and second generation of visual artists and their notable individualities. It is a compelling narrative beginning with two lonely modernists, Maxwell Bates and W.L. Stevenson, practising Expressionism in isolated Alberta in contrast with the art of British-trained artists/teachers, A.C. Leighton and H.G. Glyde.

It then documents the extraordinary support of the Carnegie Corporation during Alberta's Depression; painting of the Alaska Highway by Peace River artists, Euphemia McNaught and Evy McBryan, during WW II; post-war Modernism featuring Expressionism, abstraction, sense of place, art of fantasy, art of social commentary, metaphor and non-objectivity; Alberta's craft and the democratization of the arts; and public art.

The author, Nancy Townshend, carefully presents the full flowering of Alberta's authentic grass-roots culture. This book tells us what Alberta's art was rather than what it wasn't. 

This book was nominated for the Melba J. Dwyer Award (20060 and was on the Edmonton Journal's best-seller list.