The McCord Museum takes a new look at the Cities of Canada

Montreal, Wednesday, February 11, 2004 — The McCord Museum presents a fresh take on Canada's mid-20th-century urban landscape with Cities of Canada — The Seagram Collection, on view from February 12 to April 12, 2004. These 40 striking cityscapes by a variety of artists were originally commissioned as part of a groundbreaking art show, also entitled Cities of Canada, which toured nationally and internationally in the early 1950s. Guest-curated by Ihor Holubizky, the McCord's Cities of Canada revisits key works from its namesake exhibition, examines the unique moment of their creation, and links them to Canada's emerging presence on the post-war global scene.

At the center of the original artistic initiative was Samuel Bronfman (1998-1971), head of the House of Seagram whisky empire. A legendary "captain of industry," Bronfman rejected the stereotypical view of Canada that dominates even today — that of a vast, idyllic and untamed wilderness. He also felt that private enterprise should do its share to sell its country as well as its products on the world market. For this reason, Bronfman commissioned 90 paintings of Canadian urban centres and displayed a selection of them throughout the Americas and Europe in 1953-54. The exhibition — and its four-ton, custom-built display unit — travelled almost 50,000 kilometres, beginning in San Juan and continuing to Havana, Mexico City, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, London, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Stockholm, the Hague, Madrid, and ending with a visit to the Canadian Armed Forces in Loest, West Germany. This was followed by a cross-Canada tour in 1954-55.

It was an unprecedented itinerary for a Canadian art show of the period. Through the original Cities of Canada exhibition the world received an alternate vision of the Great White North: one with cities "rising from its seacoasts, in the midst of its plains, at the foot of mountains"; one that was active, metropolitan and industrial. Certain paintings also appeared in advertisements for Seagram V.O. (whisky), which ran in international publications such as Time and Life as well as in the local media of many countries.

Most of these remarkable cityscapes have not been displayed in public since 1967. Of the 90 works originally commissioned by Bronfman, 83 were donated to the McCord by the Seagram Company Ltd. in 2000, and that same year were certified as artworks of "outstanding significance and national importance" by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board, an independent tribunal of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The McCord's exhibition provides a rare opportunity to view these special works and to revisit, 50 years later, the extraordinary circumstances that first brought them into being.

An assortment of young artists and their established peers participated in the ambitious Seagram project. Expert guidance in the selection process came from Robert Pilot and A.Y. Jackson, both of whom played important roles in the formation of the modern, national school of painting in the first half of the 20th century. Other participants who are now recognizable names in the history of Canadian art include Goodridge Roberts, Frederick B. Taylor and Albert Cloutier. According to guest curator Ihor Holubizky, the result of their collective efforts is "an often surprising mixture of frankness and the pictorial sublime," as in A.J. Casson's depiction of Hamilton's skyline of steel mills and belching smokestacks. A view of Edmonton is, in the words of the artist, Charles Comfort, "like a great booming vortex of industrial enterprises."

A new Canadian identity was emerging in the 1950s, and the paintings in Cities of Canada reflect this shifting character as clearly as the 1951 census. The population tripled in the first half of the 20th century, and almost 57 percent of Canadians were now located in urban environments. By this time Canada truly was a nation of city-dwellers, regardless of the rugged wilderness stereotype, and Bronfman meant to get this message across to the world — in his words, "to establish abroad a familiarity with our urban life."

Cities of Canada — The Seagram Collection is on display at the McCord Museum from February 12 to April 12, 2004.

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Images available upon request.

Nike Langevin
Head of Communications
Telephone : (514) 398-7100, ext. 251
nike.langevin@mccord.mcgill.ca

The McCord wishes to acknowledge the support of the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications and the Montreal Arts Council.