The eastern Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland have a rich history when it comes to the visual arts and fine craft. For thousands of years the First Nations of the region have been masters in shaping birchbark and other materials into sophisticated shelters, canoes, baskets, and many other objects. By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, settler painters and draftsmen with military training began to record the region. By the end of the 19th century, art schools such as Mount Allison and NSCAD’s precursors in Nova Scotia, were setting a foundation in teaching art techniques and history that continues to this day. Vibrant art communities appeared in the ensuing decades, including Saint John in the 1930s, Moncton in the 1960s, and Halifax in the 1970s.
Exhibited in this gallery are some of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery’s Atlantic Canadian masterworks, produced from the early-19th century to the present.
Exhibition curated by Dr. John Leroux and organized by the Marion McCain Institute for Atlantic Canadian Art
