Canoe: A Collection of Canadian Art

Anne Ewen · Rod Green
Foreword by Grit & Scott McCreath

Canoe: A Collection of Canadian Art brings together works from the Grit and Scott McCreath Canoe Collection, assembled over more than 30 years. The collection began with a conversation between Scott McCreath and Rod Green about Scott’s love of the canoe. Rod suggested that, with Masters Gallery’s guidance, they build a collection devoted to the canoe in Canadian art. Over the decades that followed, Scott and Grit built what has become the largest private collection of original Canadian art featuring canoe subjects.

The book presents 90 works by 50 historical and contemporary artists, spanning nearly 200 years of Canadian art. Anne Ewen provides the introduction, while Rod Green’s text accompanying the works offers insight into each artwork and artist. A foreword by Grit and Scott McCreath introduces the collection and its story.

Through paintings, sculpture, prints, carvings, glass, ceramics and birch bark canoes, Canoe explores the many ways generations of artists have depicted and interpreted the canoe and its enduring place within the Canadian landscape and imagination.

Among the artists represented are Alex Colville, David Milne, Cornelius Krieghoff, Frances Anne Hopkins, Ernest Lindner, Illingworth Kerr and Walter J. Phillips, among many others. Each work is reproduced in full colour.

Richly illustrated, Canoe is both a presentation of an extraordinary Canadian collection and an exploration of the canoe as one of the most enduring subjects in Canadian visual culture.

Selected works from the collection are currently on view in Canoe Perspectives at The Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ontario.

Hardcover · 184 pages · Figure 1 Publishing · ISBN 9781773272948