Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic at the AGO

Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic at the AGO

On now at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the exquisite exhibition Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic. Five years in the planning and scheduled to run concurrently with the Pan Am Games and Parapan Am Games 2015, the show takes visitors on a spectacular visual journey through the Americas. […]

25.06.2015 · Filled under: Art, Canada, Toronto · Tags: ,
Visions of Mughal India and Howard Hodgkin paintings at Aga Khan Museum, Toronto

Visions of Mughal India and Howard Hodgkin paintings at Aga Khan Museum, Toronto

Two brilliant exhibitions on now at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, reveal British painter Howard Hodgkin’s lifelong fascination with India. Inspired by India: Paintings by Howard Hodgkin features the artist’s own work inspired by the energy, light and colours of India. Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin displays extraordinary historical pieces from Hodgkin’s private collection. […]

03.04.2015 · Filled under: Art, Canada, Toronto · Tags: , ,
ArtSmart Roundtable: Francis Bacon & Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty at AGO, Toronto

ArtSmart Roundtable: Francis Bacon & Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty at AGO, Toronto

Welcome to the ArtSmart Roundtable! Our theme this month is Sculpture. I’m excited to talk about British sculptor Henry Moore and the major new exhibition Francis Bacon & Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty now open at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more on the ArtSmart Roundtable and links to my colleagues’ articles, scroll to the […]

14.04.2014 · Filled under: Art, ArtSmart Roundtable, Canada, Toronto · Tags:
Color Field paintings by Canadian artist William Perehudoff, in NYC

Color Field paintings by Canadian artist William Perehudoff, in NYC

COLOR! I’m excited to talk about a show I just saw at the new Berry Campbell gallery in New York: William Perehudoff: Color Field Paintings from the 1980s. It’s delightful, though not surprising, that a New York art gallery would choose an abstract painter from the Canadian prairies for their opening show. There are actually […]

08.11.2013 · Filled under: Art, Canada, New York · Tags:
A walk home in Winnipeg

A walk home in Winnipeg

After too many years, I recently made a trip home to Winnipeg. In between sorting boxes of my childhood books and looking at old photos with my mother and godmother, I went out with my sister and revisited old haunts. Walking home from Bar Italia on Corydon Avenue one evening, I took these photos. Being […]

15.05.2013 · Filled under: Canada, Legendary Landscapes · Tags: ,
High style at the Bata Shoe Museum

High style at the Bata Shoe Museum

Time for ArtSmart Roundtable, a group of travel bloggers sharing a passion for art and cultural destinations.  This month’s topic is the Best Museum You’ve Never Heard Of. For me that would be the delightful Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. I came of age in Bata shoes. Indigo suede ankle boots with rust stars on the ankles […]

07.01.2013 · Filled under: Architecture, ArtSmart Roundtable, Canada, Lefthandedness · Tags: ,
Let it snow! Wintery works by Canadian artists

Let it snow! Wintery works by Canadian artists

  Postcard-pretty weather over the holidays inspired this collection of snow paintings by Canadian artists.  Here are a few of my favorites, past and present: Maud Lewis (1903-1970), Digby County, Nova Scotia.  Despite her disabilities and the primitive conditions in the 4.1 x 3.8 m dwelling she shared with her husband Everett, Maud’s folk art […]

06.01.2013 · Filled under: Art, Canada, Legendary Landscapes · Tags:
A ghostly tour of the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre, Toronto

A ghostly tour of the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre, Toronto

Step up to the birdcage, buy a ticket for a tour of the last operating double-decker Edwardian theatre in the world.  It’s cool and dark inside.  The Elgin below, all red velvet with leering gilt satyrs, the Winter Garden a fairylit birch forest above.  But if you think something beckoned from behind an old backdrop, […]

31.10.2012 · Filled under: Architecture, Canada, Myths & Legends · Tags: , ,
Taking the 506 streetcar to little India

Taking the 506 streetcar to little India

Toronto’s 506 Carlton streetcar is one of the best sightseeing bargains in the city, rambling past many of Toronto’s most colourful neighborhoods – Cabbagetown, Kensington Market, the original Little Italy and two separate ‘Chinatowns’ – on its way to and from its western terminus at High Park. A few days ago I hopped on the […]

02.07.2012 · Filled under: Canada, Festivals & Events, Food · Tags: ,
Cherry blossoms in Toronto

Cherry blossoms in Toronto

Of all the beautiful things that grow better with age, the magnificent Somei-Yoshino cherry trees in Toronto’s High Park are some of the best. The donation of blossoming cherry trees, or sakura, has been a project of the Japanese Consulate in Toronto for years. With the support of private donors, the consulate’s Sakura Project has planted […]

02.04.2012 · Filled under: Canada, Festivals & Events · Tags: , ,
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