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Bio
Brian Foss holds an M.A. in Canadian Art History from Concordia University and a Ph.D. from the University of London, where he was a Commonwealth Scholar. The recipient of the 2003 Distinguished Teaching Award in the Faculty of Fine Arts, he specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Canadian art, twentieth-century British art, war and art, and issues of nationhood and identity in visual culture. He is also the author of numerous catalogues and essays, and has curated or co-curated exhibitions on the art of Edwin Holgate (1892-1977), Mary Hiester Reid (1854-1921) and Robert Harris (1849-1919), as well as on images of the modern city (1998), work by emerging artists (1993), art collecting by the Université de Montréal (1993), military views from Lower Canada (1992), and the visual representation of rural Quebec over two centuries (1991). In 2007 his book War Paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain 1939-1945 was published by Yale University Press. He is currently co-editing a history of twentieth-century Canadian art for Oxford University Press, is co-curating an exhibition on Montreal's Beaver Hall artists' group (1920-22) for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (2011), and is a member of the comité scientifique organising the exhibition Expanding Horizons: Confederation, Reconstruction and the Final Frontier for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2009). He is also the associate editor of the Journal of Canadian Art History, and an editor of RACAR: Revue d’art canadien / Canadian Art Review.
| : Publications: Books
and Exhibition Catalogues |
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War Paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain 1939-1945 (London & New Haven: Yale University Prtess, 2007). |
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Edwin Holgate
Montreal: MMFA, 2005
Curated by Rosalind Pepall (MMFA)
and Brian Foss
Edwin Holgate (1892-1977), a major figure in Montreal's art community and in the history of Canadian art, achieved fame for his landscapes, portraits and nudes. This major retrospective exhibition featured more than 170 paintings, drawings, watercolours, prints, book illustrations and archival photographs. http://www.mmfa.qc.ca/en/expositions/ |
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Quiet Harmony: The Art of Mary Hiester Reid
Curated by Brian Foss and Janice Anderson. Published in French as: L’Univers harmonieux de Mary Hiester Reid (Toronto: Musée des beaux-arts de l’Ontario, 2000). |
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“War and the Visual Arts,” in Loyd E. Lee, ed. World War II in Asia and the Pacific and the War’s Aftermath, With General Themes: A Handbook of Literature and Research (Westport, CT, & London: Greenwood Press, 1998). |
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“The Road to Calvary,” in Curtis J. Collins, ed., God, Man, and the Devil: Miller Gore Brittain (Fredericton: Beaverbrook Art Gallery, 1998). |
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“Molly Lamb Bobak: Art and War/Molly Lamb Bobak: art et guerre,” in Molly Lamb Bobak: A Retrospective (Regina: Mackenzie Art Gallery, 1993). |
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Sur la scène locale/Local Developments: 20th-century Montreal Area Art from the Collection of the Université de Montréal (Montreal: Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, 1993). |
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L'Entrespace/The Space Between (Montreal: Saidye Bronfman Centre, 1993). Co-curator & author. |
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Robert Harris and the Politics of Portraiture (St-Lambert: Musée Marsil, 1991). Published in French as: Robert Harris et le sens politique du portrait (St-Lambert: Musée Marsil, 1991). |
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Publications : Articles |
"In Memoriam: Natalie Luckyj," Journal of Canadian Art History 22 no.1 (2002): 118-24.
“Synchromism’ in Canada: Lawren Harris, Decorative Landscape and Willard Huntington Wright, 1916-17,” Journal of Canadian Art History 20 no.1 (1999): 66-90.
“No Dead Wood’: Henry Lamb and the Canadians,” Canadian Military History 6 no.2 (Autumn 1997): 62-7.
“Message and Medium: Government Patronage, National Culture and National Identity in Britain, 1939-45,” Oxford Art Journal 14 no.2 (1991): 52-72.
"Canadian Artist Copyists at the National Gallery, London in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," Journal of Canadian Art History 11 nos.1&2 (1988): 109-30.
"'It's Not a Bad Life Sometimes': Edward Ardizzone's Paintings and Drawings of the Second World War," Imperial War Museum Review [London] 2 space (1987): 15-22.
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Current Projects |
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Anne Whitelaw, Brian Foss and Sandra Paikowsky, eds., The Visual Arts in Canada: The Twentieth Century (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2008/09).
Co-curator, The Beaver Hall Group (Montreal & Kleinburg: Montreal
Museum of Fine Arts and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 2011).
Member, comite scientifique (curator: Hilliard Goldfarb), Expanding
Horizons: Confederation, Reconstruction and the Final Frontier (Montreal:
MMFA, 2009). |
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Honours
2003
Faculty of Fine Arts Distinguished Teaching Award.
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Teaching
: Undergraduate (since 2000)
ARTH 361
Aspects of Ancient Roman Art and Architecture
Topic: Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from Augustus to Hadrian
ARTH 370
Aspects of Canadian Art
Topic: Painting in Canada, 1890-1970
ARTH 391
Art and Its Changing Contexts
: Teaching
: Graduate (since 2000)
ARTH 626
Nationhood and Identity in Canadian Art
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Thesis Supervision : Graduate (since 2000)
Ph.D. Art History
2006
Dominic Hardy. "A Metropolitan Line: Robert LaPalme (1908-1997), Caricature and Power in the Age of Duplessis (1936-1959).
2006
Anita Grants, "Selectivity, Interpretation and Application: A Consideration of the Influence of John Ruskin in Canada".
2002
Janice Anderson. “Creating Room: Canadian Women’s Mural Painting and Rereadings of the Public and Private.”
Master’s Art History
2007
Emily Robertson. "Pushing the Envelope: The Evolution of Mail Art in Canada".
2007
Lee Bayes. "Ray Mead: The Anthropomorphic Gesture"
2006
Lori Beavis. "An Educational Journey: Women's Art Training inCanada and Abroad 1880-1929".
2006
Luke Nicholson. "Being Framed by Irony: AIDS and the Art of General Idea".
2005 Cynthia Roblin. "Crossfire: Gender, Cyberfeminism and World Wide Web Visual Culture"
2004
Lesley Brock, “Boxing Time: Landscape, Feminism and the Archive in Selected Works by Angela Grauerholz.”
2002
Glenn Brook, “Canada: A People’s History – An Analysis of the Visual Narrative for a Colonial Nation.”
2001
Denis Longchamps, “La mémoire de l’histoire: la construction d’un stéréotype; l’habitant canadien-français dans les arts visuels au Québec.”
2000
Susan Hart, “Canada’s War Memorials at the End of the Millennium: Issues of Modernism and Postmodernism.”
2000
Martine Fournier, “Rails and Ties: A Comparison of Late Nineteenth-century Images of Western Railways in the United States and Canada.”
2000
Emily Falvey, “In the AND: Experimentation and the Impossible in the Art of John Murchie, Mary Scott and Eric Cameron.”
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Papers Read (since 2002)
2006
“Inhabiting Landscapes: Rural Settings for the Human Figure.” National Gallery of Canada.
2006
“Nudes Without Cosmetics: Edwin Holgate, Landscape and the Human Figure.” McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg.
2006
“Branding Britain: The International Programmes of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee.” Imperial War Museum, London.
2005
"Nudes Without Cosmetics: Edwin Holgate, Landscape
and the Human Figure." Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
2005
"Body Doubles: Gender and the Landscape in the Group
of Seven." Ottawa Art Gallery.
2002
“Homer Watson and the Ideology of the Agrarian Landscape in Canada, 1880-1920.” National Gallery of Canada.
2002
“There’s Something About Mary: Art, History, and the Lost-and-Found Reputation of Mary Hiester Reid.” University of Alberta.
