Sonia Del Re and Kirsten Appleyard

Delve into Canada’s premier collection of international drawings and discover never-before-seen artworks straight from the vault. Founded in 1921 and the first of its kind in the country, the National Gallery of Canada’s Department of Prints and Drawings boasts ever-evolving, world-class holdings of historical drawings dating from the 15th to the 20th century, in every medium – from graphite to ink, pastel to watercolour. Enjoy this rare opportunity to view works by Gustav Klimt, Théodore Géricault and Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, among many others, including newly acquired sheets and little-known but historically significant drawings that for conservation reasons are usually kept in the dark. The selection is wide-ranging, featuring everything from preparatory works for paintings to subjects drawn from history and mythology, portraits, landscapes, forays into abstraction and poignant explorations of the human condition.

Celebrate the legacy of the Department of Prints and Drawings first-hand through this captivating exhibition and richly illustrated catalogue marking its recent 100-year anniversary.

Feuille à feuille. La collection de dessins dévoilée is organized by the National Gallery of Canada. The publication is made possible with support from the Getty Foundation through its “The Paper Project: Prints and Drawings Curatorship in the 21st Century” initiative.

Hardcover | 203 pages
Publication Date: 2024

Karoo Ashevak (1940-1974)
Figure, 1974

Ashevak’s exaggeration of features and imaginative use of whale bone helped define the expressive style of the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut. The dissimilar eyes, which signify exceptional sight, and the mittened hand, a symbol of spiritual ability, together suggest that this figured is a powerful otherworldly being.

6.5 x 9 cm (2.5 x 3.5 in.)

In the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Karoo Ashevak (1940-1974)
Figure, 1974

Ashevak’s exaggeration of features and imaginative use of whale bone helped define the expressive style of the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut. The dissimilar eyes, which signify exceptional sight, and the mittened hand, a symbol of spiritual ability, together suggest that this figured is a powerful otherworldly being.

Card dimensions: 13.5 x 17.5 cm (5.3 x 6.8 in.)
Blank inside. Envelope included.

In the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Sebastian Schütze Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen 

Around 1900, a small group of influential patrons, critics, writers, and artists turned Weimar; the capital of the small Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach in present-day Germany, into a utopian centre of modern art and thought. Artists like Max Klinger, Edvard Munch, and Ludwig von Hofmann, and writers like André Gide, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Rainer Maria Rilke sought to create a “New Weimar” and position Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) at its head as the radical prophet of modernity.

In 1902, two years after Nietzsche's death, Max Klinger was commissioned to carve his portrait. Only three monumental bronze versions were cast, one of which is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. With this sculpture in focus, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Artists of the New Weimar shows how Klinger and his patrons invented the “official” Nietzsche, transforming a highly expressionist portrait into an idealized classical cult image.

Softcover | 120 pages
20.5 x 24 cm (8 x 9.4 in.)
Publication Date: 2019

Sonia Del Re and Kirsten Appleyard

Delve into Canada’s premier collection of international drawings and discover never-before-seen artworks straight from the vault. Founded in 1921 and the first of its kind in the country, the National Gallery of Canada’s Department of Prints and Drawings boasts ever-evolving, world-class holdings of historical drawings dating from the 15th to the 20th century, in every medium – from graphite to ink, pastel to watercolour. Enjoy this rare opportunity to view works by Gustav Klimt, Théodore Géricault and Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, among many others, including newly acquired sheets and little-known but historically significant drawings that for conservation reasons are usually kept in the dark. The selection is wide-ranging, featuring everything from preparatory works for paintings to subjects drawn from history and mythology, portraits, landscapes, forays into abstraction and poignant explorations of the human condition.

Celebrate the legacy of the Department of Prints and Drawings first-hand through this captivating exhibition and richly illustrated catalogue marking its recent 100-year anniversary.

Gathered Leaves: Discoveries from the Drawings Vault is organized by the National Gallery of Canada. The publication is made possible with support from the Getty Foundation through its “The Paper Project: Prints and Drawings Curatorship in the 21st Century” initiative.

Hardcover | 203 pages
Publication Date: 2024

Edited by Cornelia Homburg and Christopher Riopelle with contributions by Elizabeth C. Childs, Dario Gamboni, Linda Goddard, Claire Guitton, Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond, and Alastair Wright

Accompanying the ground-breaking exhibition Gauguin: Portraits, this publication marks the first in-depth investigation of Gauguin’s portraits, revealing how the artist expanded the possibilities of the genre in new and exciting ways.

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) broke with accepted conventions and challenged audiences to expand their understanding of visual expression. Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than in his portraits, a genre he remained engaged with throughout all phases of his career.

A welcome addition to the scholarship on one of the 19th century’s most innovative and controversial artists, this richly illustrated volume contains more than 160 illustrations, presenting fascinating insights into the crucial role that portraiture played in Gauguin’s overall artistic practice.

Hardcover | 272 pages
24.5 x 31 cm (9.6 x 12.2 in.)
Publication Date: 2019

Edited by Cornelia Homburg and Christopher Riopelle with contributions by Elizabeth C. Childs, Dario Gamboni, Linda Goddard, Claire Guitton, Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond, and Alastair Wright

Accompanying the ground-breaking exhibition Gauguin: Portraits, this publication marks the first in-depth investigation of Gauguin’s portraits, revealing how the artist expanded the possibilities of the genre in new and exciting ways.

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) broke with accepted conventions and challenged audiences to expand their understanding of visual expression. Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than in his portraits, a genre he remained engaged with throughout all phases of his career.

A welcome addition to the scholarship on one of the 19th century’s most innovative and controversial artists, this richly illustrated volume contains more than 160 illustrations, presenting fascinating insights into the crucial role that portraiture played in Gauguin’s overall artistic practice.

Hardcover | 272 pages
24.5 x 31 cm (9.6 x 12.2 in.)
Publication Date: 2019

Edited by Adam Welch

Contributors: David Balzer, AA Bronson, Diedrich Diederichsen, Dominic Johnson, Theodore Kerr, Alex Kitnick, Sholem Krishtalka, Élisabeth Lebovici, Philip Monk, Diana Nemiroff, and Beatrix Ruf

General Idea (1969–1994) were pioneers of conceptual and media art whose work attained international prominence through the art world and the streets in equal measure. The ground-breaking collective practice of AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal spanned twenty-five years, addressing aspects of mass media, consumer culture, queer identity, the art economy and the AIDS crisis. They remain some of the most influential artists to have emerged from Canada.

This monumental publication presents a visual survey of General Idea’s artworks, from their earliest performances and actions to their use of consumer and advertising media in the public realm to their gallery and museum work. Including texts by a range of scholars and more than 500 illustrations, it is the definitive resource on General Idea. 

Softcover | 756 pages 
27 x 30 cm (10.6 x 11.8 in.) 
Publication Date: 2022

Edited by Adam Welch 

Contributors: David Balzer, AA Bronson, Diedrich Diederichsen, Dominic Johnson, Theodore Kerr, Alex Kitnick, Sholem Krishtalka, Élisabeth Lebovici, Philip Monk, Diana Nemiroff, and Beatrix Ruf

General Idea (1969–1994) were pioneers of conceptual and media art whose work attained international prominence through the art world and the streets in equal measure. The ground-breaking collective practice of AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal spanned twenty-five years, addressing aspects of mass media, consumer culture, queer identity, the art economy and the AIDS crisis. They remain some of the most influential artists to have emerged from Canada.  

This monumental publication presents a visual survey of General Idea’s artworks, from their earliest performances and actions to their use of consumer and advertising media in the public realm to their gallery and museum work. Including texts by a range of scholars and more than 500 illustrations, it is the definitive resource on General Idea.

Softcover | 756 pages 
27 x 30 cm (10.6 x 11.8 in.) 
Publication Date: 2022

Kitty Scott

The National Gallery of Canada presents Geoffrey Farmer's installation A Way Out of the Mirror, at the 2017 Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition. Farmer combines theatrical techniques such as staging and improvisation to create rich and layered works that are open to interpretation and propose multiple alternative narratives.

Hardcover | 270 pages
30 x 19.5 cm (11.75 x 7.5 in.)
Bilingual
Publication Date: 2017

Prudence Heward (1896-1947)
Girl on a Hill, 1928

Heward was one of a group of women artists who were active in Montreal between the First and Second World Wars. She was primarily known for her figure painting and was associated with the artists who formed the Beaver Hall Group.

6.5 x 9 cm (2.5 x 3.5 in.)

In the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Prudence Heward (1896-1947)
Girl on a Hill, 1928

Heward was one of a group of women artists who were active in Montreal between the First and Second World Wars. She was primarily known for her figure painting and was associated with the artists who formed the Beaver Hall Group.

Card dimensions: 13.5 x 17.5 cm (5.3 x 6.8 in.)
Blank inside. Envelope included.

In the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Anabelle Kienle Poňka, Lily Foster and Sarah Fillmore

A year after the city was devastated by the Halifax Explosion, Harold Gilman (British, 1876–1919) and Arthur Lismer (Canadian, 1885–1969) were working in Halifax as war artists. Both commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Fund to record the war activity on the home front, the two men struck up a friendship and worked side-by-side on occasion.

With the effects of the explosion still clearly visible, Gilman and Lismer turned their attention to the bustling harbour. Produced in conjunction with the Halifax Harbour 1918 exhibition, this compelling book traces the artists' meticulous approach to their mission, the challenges of working during the aftermath of the tragedy and their role during a critical moment in the history of Canadian landscape painting.

Paperback | 144 Pages
25.5 x 23 x 1 cm (10 x 9 x 0.4 in.) 
Publication Date: 2018
Bilingual

Lynne Cooke

This transformative exhibition explores how abstract art and woven textiles have intertwined over the past hundred years.

In the 20th century, textiles were often considered lesser – as applied art, women’s work, or domestic craft. Woven Histories challenges the hierarchies that have separated textiles from fine arts. Putting into dialogue some 130 works by more than 45 creators from across generations and continents, the exhibition explores the contributions; weaving and related techniques have made to abstraction, modernism’s pre-eminent art form.

See a variety of textile techniques including weaving, knitting, netting, knotting and felting. Learn about the wide-ranging reasons artists from Anni Albers to Rosemarie Trockel and Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians/Cherokee Nation) have engaged with this art form. Some seek to effect social change; others address political issues. Engaging with textiles as subject, material and technique, still others revitalize abstraction’s formal conventions or critique its patriarchal history and gendered identity.

Follow this hidden thread of art history to discover the work of creators who were once marginalized for their gender, race or class.

Hardcover
24 x 28 cm (9.5 x 11 in.)
Publication date: 2024

The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

This notecard features the painting Hommage aux Nymphéas – Pavane (1954) by Jean Paul Riopelle (1923-2002).

Card dimensions: 13 x 18 cm (5 x 7 in.)
Blank inside. Envelope included.

In the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Moyra Davey, Dalie Giroux and Andrea Kunard

Over the past 40 years, artist Moyra Davey has perfected a unique synthesis of photography, film and text to critically engage with the past, present and future of the world around her. Based on Davey’s eponymous 2019 film, this publication unites three main sources in a chronicle of late 20th-century Quebec, shaped by themes of race, poverty, language and nationalism. Using American writer James Baldwin’s 1962 novel Another Country as its point of departure, it focuses on the life and work of Québécois revolutionary Pierre Vallières and Ottawa-based political philosopher Dalie Giroux.

Published to accompany the exhibition Moyra Davey: The Faithful at the National Gallery of Canada, this deeply personal and highly political book seeks to examine an unresolved chapter of Québécois history from a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective that draws attention to contemporary issues of separatism, while reflecting the artist’s understanding of photography and text as unique corollaries.

This publication features writings by the artist, Dalie Giroux and National Gallery of Canada’s Associate Curator Andrea Kunard, and a poster insert.

Softcover | 168 pages (90 illustrations)
17.3 x 24.1 cm (6.7 x 9.5 in.)
Publication Date: 2020

This switch plate features a detail from Vincent van Gogh's painting Iris (1889) in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Made for single gang toggle switch
11.43 x 6.98 cm (4.5 x 2.75 in)

David Franklin

Seventy of the finest Italian drawings from the 16th to the 18th centuries in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada are featured in this volume. Brilliant examples by such artists as Giulio Romano, Parmigianino, Annibale Carracci and Piranesi were selected and described. This is the first in a series of catalogues presenting selected treasures from the Gallery's permanent collection.

Paper | 176 pages
Publication Date: 2003

This notecard features the artwork Jacket for Two Typescripts by Antonin Artaud (1948) by Jean Paul Riopelle (1923-2002).

Card dimensions: 13 x 18 cm (5 x 7 in.)
Blank inside. Envelope included.

In the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

This notecard features the painting Knight Watch (1953) by Jean Paul Riopelle (1923-2002).

Card dimensions: 13 x 18 cm (5 x 7 in.)
Blank inside. Envelope included.

In the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.