Art and Work: A Social History of Labour in the Canadian Graphic Arts Industry to the 1940sThis book is a history of the development of commercial illustration and the graphic arts industry in Canada from the late eighteenth century to the 1940s. It suggests that the foundations of Canadian art and a Canadian popular culture rest not only within the European traditions of fine art but also with the work of those artists who practised in the commercial environment of the early graphic arts houses. It is also a history of a type of "work" that was new during this period. The mechanized reproduction of art works in the nineteenth century meant that artists found themselves within an industrial atmosphere similar to that of other workers. This history traces the beginning of that process in England, follows its transference to Canada, and demonstrates how illustrators, engravers, photo-engravers, and lithographers became part of an increasingly commercially oriented industry. It was an industry of major importance in the fields of printing and new forms of advertising, but it was also an industry that led to a change in status for the members of its work force who considered themselves to be artists. The study is not concerned with aesthetic values of works of art or with the impact that commercially produced art work has had on consumer culture. Rather, it seeks to understand artists as workers, and work itself, within the changing commercial and industrial milieu of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Canada. |
Contents
Social History and the Graphic Arts | 3 |
Artists Engravers and | 13 |
Visitors | 36 |
Engravers | 55 |
Artists and Commercial | 83 |
The Spread | 100 |
Labour and Art 19141940 | 122 |
Social History and Popular Culture | 133 |
Other editions - View all
Art and Work: A Social History of Labour in the Canadian Graphic Arts ... Angela E. Davis Limited preview - 1994 |
Common terms and phrases
advertising Allodi apprentices Arnold Brigden art history Artisan became Bellan Bewick Brigden Papers Canadian art Canadian artists Canadian graphic arts Canadian Illustrated Canadian Painting catalogue Charles Comfort Colgate commercial art commercial artists craft Desbarats E.F. Baker early Eaton's employees England engravers and lithographers established Frank Ferguson Fred Brigden Frederick Brigden George graphic arts firms graphic arts houses graphic arts industry Group of Seven Ibid James Smillie John Orrin Smith labour landscapes Linton lithographers London magazines major Manitoba mechanical Metropolitan Toronto Montreal newspapers nineteenth century Ontario Ontario Society Painting in Canada period photo-engravers photographic plates popular culture pressmen Printers and Technology printing trade Printmaking in Canada produced published Quebec Quebec City reproduction retail Rolph Ruskin skills social Society of Artists Stovel Tazewell Thomas Bewick Timothy Eaton tion Tom Thomson Toronto Engraving Company Trade Unions Victorian William William Leggo wood engraving workers Zerker