Bringing Art to Life: A Biography of Alan Jarvis

by Horrall, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9780773535749
• ISBN10: 0773535748
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-09-14
• Publisher: McGill Queens Univ Pr

Summary

Only thirty-nine when he took over the National Gallery in 1955, Jarvis already had an extraordinary record of achievement and social mobility at home and in England: he had trained with Canada's greatest artists, won a Rhodes scholarship, lunched at the Algonquin Round Table in New York, managed an aircraft factory, written a bestseller, produced films, run a slum settlement, and moved in a London social circle that included Noël Coward and Vivien Leigh. As head of the National Gallery, Jarvis was a provocative public educator, advocating his idea of "a museum without walls" in countless public appearances. Instrumental in bringing modern art to the National Gallery, he shook artists and the art-minded public out of a period of national complacency. This first detailed account of the controversy surrounding his time at the gallery provides an important context for the ongoing and contested role of publicly supported arts and art institutions in this country. Tracing Jarvis' personal background and varied careers through archives, published sources, and interviews with family, friends, colleagues, and critics, Bringing Art to Life assesses his impact and exposes the formal and informal mechanisms through which Canadian culture operated in the mid-twentieth century.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Colour plates follow page	p. xii
ôA Walking Work of Artö: Introduction	p. 3
ôA Curiously Mixed Backgroundö: Family and Childhood, 1915-1934	p. 8
ôDouglas Duncan Invented Meö: Undergraduate, 1934-1938	p. 27
ôI May Come Home with an Accent, God Forbidö: Europe, Oxford, and Darlington, 1938-1939	p. 55
ôThe Dead Daysö: Toronto and New York City, 1939-1941	p. 85
ôUp to My Ears in the Business Worldö: England, 1942-1945	p. 105
ôTo Build a New Kind of Societyö: The Council of Industrial Design, 1945-1947	p. 136
ôA Break in a Millionö: Pilgrim Pictures, 1948-1950	p. 159
ôI Certainly Hope 1950 Will Be Differentö: Oxford House, 1950-1955	p. 189
ôA Museum without Wallsö: The National Gallery of Canada, 1955-1956	p. 217
ôA Chamber of Horrorsö: The National Gallery of Canada, 1957-1959	p. 264
ôCanada's Most Outspoken and Witty Man About the Artsö: Toronto, 1960-1968	p. 277
ôWe Have Lost Our Sheep Dogö: The Last Years, 1968-1972	p. 337
Conclusion	p. 350
Notes	p. 355
Bibliography	p. 427
Index
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