David Milne ― Modern Painting

This comprehensive survey of the life and work of the Canadian artist David Milne (1882-1953) accompanies the UK exhibition of Milne's work at Dulwich Picture Gallery and two Canadian exhibitions in 2019 and brings together 120 of his most significant works in oil, watercolor, and dry-point printmaking.

Like the members of the Group of Seven, Milne primarily chose landscape as his subject matter. However, his true subject was the process of perception and representation, reducing his painting to its essentials and infusing it with his own distinctive modern sensibility. Through the use of photographs, archival material and Milne's own writings the book presents a moving account of one man's spiritual and emotional voyage into modernity: from his early life in small town Ontario, to the bustling sidewalks of New York, on to the war torn landscapes of northern France as an official war artist and back again to the woods, lakes and fields of upstate New York.

Pivoting as it does on Milne's war art, which includes some of the most formally daring of his career, the publication will serve as a poignant locus of remembrance, underscoring the historic bond between Canada and Great Britain, and offering a unique perspective on history through the eyes of one of Canada's most sophisticated modern painters.

Sarah Milroy is the former editor and publisher of Canadian Art magazine and a co-founder of the Canadian Art Foundation. From 2001 to 2010, she served as chief art critic of the Globe and Mail. Sarah co-curated From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia with Ian AC Dejardin in 2015.

Ian A.C. Dejardin is Executive Director of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. He has previously curated the Painting Canada series: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven (2011) and From the Forest to the Sea (2015) with Sarah Milroy.