Artists, Society, and Activism: The Federation of Canadian Artists and the Social Organization of Canadian Art

Andrew Nurse Mount Allison University

Dr. Andrew Nurse, Coordinator, Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University, Mount Allison, New Brunswick E4L 1G9 [email protected]

Abstract The Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA), established in the wake of the 1941 Kingston Conference, became a central institution through which Canadian artists attempted to re- organize their relationship to society. In particular, members of the FCA built on a series of more long-standing concerns about the problematic relationship between art and society under conditions of modernity. The FCA’s goal was to bridge the gap between the arts and life and, as such, it served as a focal point through which the artists debated the character this new relationship should take. Looking first to contribute to Canada’s war effort and then post-war reconstruction, the FCA ultimately instituted a series of policies that lead it away from its original objectives even while it maintained a discourse critical of the fractured and alienating nature of modern life and culture.

follow Bieler’s lead and establish the In late June 1941, over 140 artists, Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA), Canada’s first national artists organization educators, critics, gallery officials and civil that brought artists together as artists. servants converged on Kingston, Ontario, for the first national Canadian artists The 1941 Kingston Conference conference. Expectations among conference occupies a prominent position in Canadian organizers ran high. “I have no doubt in my cultural historiography. A variety of mind,” Queen’s Artist-in-Residence André different studies argue that the Kingston Bieler wrote National Gallery director H.O. Conference constituted a key stepping stone McCurry, “that this Conference, if to the realization of a professionalized, state- successful, will be the sign post of supported Canadian cultural infrastructure. importance on the long road of Canadian 1 As early 1951, for example, key conference art.” In Bieler’s view, the conference organizer André Bieler, suggested that the needed to address two pressing issues: Kingston Conference began the process recent technical developments in artistic leading to the Royal Commission on production and the role and place of the 2 National Development in Arts, Letters, and artist is society. As the Kingston Sciences.3 In Making Culture, Maria Tippett Conference unfolded, the second of these supported this assessment, arguing that the issues took precedence as artists voiced their Kingston Conference stood at a key dividing disaffection with the current state of line in the institutional history of Canadian Canadian culture and, in particular, what art. It served to draw out the idea that the they viewed as the problematic relationship arts merited state financial support and between the artist and society. This should not be left on a laissez-faire basis.4 disaffection led the assembled artists to More recently, Jeffrey Brison has argued

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 1 that the Kingston Conference should be seen articulated their concerns with the state of as part of an elite driven process of cultural Canadian culture and devised responses to nation-building that culminated in the post- what they viewed as their marginalized World War II expansion of state support for social position. Initially, Canadian artists scholarship, medicine, education, and the saw World War II as a key opportunity to arts.5 contribute to society and illustrate the importance of the arts. Increasingly, The approach taken in this essay is however, their attention was devoted to different. The extensive archival records left post-War cultural planning and the by the FCA and its key officials allow us to construction of a new artistic order. Exactly explore the historical dynamics of artistic what this order would entail was the issue activism in Canada under conditions of that stood at the core of FCA activism. modernity. What factors conditioned artistic activism in modern Canada? What role should the arts play in society? And, how did this group of artists address the problems Modernity and the Problem of they confronted? The modern age, Canadian Art artists and intellectuals recognized, carried with it a series of interrelated cultural In her study of the Kingston processes that proved intensely problematic Conference, Hélène Sicotte argues that the for the arts. These included: the rise of Depression and the beginning of the Second consumerism linked to mass media, the World War forced artists to reconsider the intensive and extensive commodification of 7 role they played in society. In important the arts, the economic instability of art ways, however, the issues raised at the markets, and an increased social detachment Kingston Conference reflected a specific of the arts. Combined, these diverse conception of modern culture that processes produced rising artistic social transcended the press of immediate alienation. In both Europe and post-World circumstances. At the Kingston Conference War II Canada, social and cultural alienation and within the FCA, Canadian artists propelled the growth of the avant-garde. As mobilized discourses that dated from the both Peter Burger and Renato Poggioli note early 1930s. Canadian artists and allied in their classic studies of the European intellectuals began to articulate a discourse avant-garde, the modern age problematized that challenged the economic and cultural the social, economic, cultural, and political processes of modernity that refashioned status of the artist. The avant-garde long-standing concerns about the economic constituted a reaction against socio- stability of the arts. They aimed to articulate economic, cultural, and political alienation. a position that addressed two inter-related Its objective was to fashion a cultural praxis but different issues: the economic status of that animated a new fusion of art and the artist and the cultural problems of society.6 modernity. Leo Smith, for example, argued that the problems confronted by musicians Beginning in the 1930s, shifting in modern Canada were not directly related aesthetic styles, the generalized economic to the Depression. “Music,” he wrote, “has crisis of the Depression, and new political at the moment some new problems quite issues forced Canadian artists to directly other than those associated with the state of confront the social detachment of the arts. In trade […] .”8 Musicians, Smith argued, this sense, the Kingston Conference, and confronted an ironic situation: there was, he then the FCA, represented the culmination believed, a greater demand for music then of artistic, intellectual, and organization ever before, yet less demand for the services initiatives that began much earlier. The FCA of musicians. Musicians faced new forms of served as the vehicle through which artists

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 2 cultural competition from cinema and radio wealth but to the way in which societies along with a listening public that could not approached art. Using the “ancient” artistic differentiate good music from bad. “The traditions of colonial new France as an trend of social legislation,” he wrote, “the example, Barbeau argued that even growth of democracy, the development of relatively poor societies could create the mechanical instruments, scientific circumstances for the evolution of great art inventions, etc., have combined […] to if they were committed to it and understood increase uncritical listening.” The result, he its value: argued, was dramatic expansion of “cheap music” at the expense of the musical arts.9

In his various writings on the arts, They [the colonial population of Group of Seven member and future FCA New France] mortgaged the future activist Arthur Lismer argued that a series of to pay the craftsmen on the broader historical processes had dislodged installment plan and often in kind, the arts from a place of importance in but always met their obligations. Art culture. Historically, Lismer suggested, art was essential, as in mediaeval times, had played an important and creative social not a mere luxury, as it has become role. In the modern age its cultural in modern life. Hence its vitality, at prominence had been dislodged by science, a time when most of America was mass media, and religion. The modern still a wilderness.13 productive process, he argued, created goods that had little artistic merit, but won popular “The collaboration among common acceptance because industry used "high- people, the craftsmen, and the diocesan pressure salesmanship" to delude authorities,” he concluded, “is what made consumers. Artists, Lismer claimed, were the growth of architecture in Quebec being forced out of their traditional possible.”14 occupations and into commercial pursuits that allowed no freedom for creativity. He For A.M. Stephens, the issue was characterized commercial art as the systemic. The current economic system, handmaid of industry: it debased and Stephens noted in an essay on the subject, dehumanized the nature of art.10 "We are was widely held to impede the flourishing of concerned about Art," Lismer wrote as early the arts. And, while he believed that artists as 1929, "because Art is separating itself needed to find inspiration within 15 from life, and we are forced to contemplate themselves, he acknowledged the Art as a separate and distinct department of difficulties of the contemporary context. Part human affairs."11 of the problem the arts confronted, Stephens argued, was that their social utility was not In his writings, the noted folklorist evident. The value of art, he believed, was Marius Barbeau implicitly supported spiritual, relating to the “inner man.” A Lismer’s arguments by drawing a stark larger part of the arts’ problems related to distinction between modern culture and the social changes. In Europe, these changes did past. The modern age, Barbeau believed, not have as great an impact because of the ushered in a new relationship between the legacy of an aristocratic tradition: “[t]he artist and society. Barbeau never explained scholar, the artist, the man of leisure and precisely what he believed triggered the culture still receives a meed of respect in a development of this new relationship but its society which does not measure men by consequences, he said, were evident: the monetary and utilitarian standards.”16 He evolution of art had stalled.12 The issue of faulted a series of other factors – from artistic vitality, Barbeau explained in the industrialization to scientific education – for midst of the Depression, did not relate to the low state in which he believed art was

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 3 mired. The result was a decline in the hoped that better education might allow quality of art and a threat to the spiritual Canadians to understand the differences aspects of humanity: “[u]ndoubtedly there between “cheap” and real music.23 For still will be a crying need for the message of art others, the real problem with Canadian art to leaven the materialism of an age in which lay in the attitude of artists themselves. For economics will speak with the authority of H.S.M. Carver, the real problem of the arts the law […].”17 Other critics agreed. In lay in artists unwillingness to engage social 1939 Graham McInnes noted a “widespread life: “a work of art which does not have opinion” that “the development of reference to the materials, the manners, and Canadian” was “languishing in the the problems amongst which we live, is doldrums.”18 meaningless.”24 It followed that if artists wanted their work recognized as socially Acadia University art professor and meaningful, they had to take the lead and critic Walter Abell, and later FCA member, produce such work. provided what was perhaps the most blunt discussion of the subject. Building on ideas For an increasing number of he began to articulate in the 1930s, Abell Canadian artists, the solution to their wondered about the consumption priorities problems lay in some form of self- of modern culture. The problem, he said, on organization. In 1941, when André Bieler a collective level, lay in popular urged the Kingston Conference to create the consumption patterns. “After all,” he wrote FCA, the idea of an artists organization was in one essay on the subject, “nations like the not new. In different forms, artists’ United States and Canada spend millions organizations had existed in Canada since […] annually on movies, automobiles, -- the mid-nineteenth century. By the late- even on such trivial satisfactions as chewing nineteenth century permanent organizations gum.” Was it unreasonable to believe that such as the Royal Canadian Academy and with the proper stimulus “people could be the Ontario Society of Artists had been inspired to spend a million or two on established.25 By the inter-war era, a variety contemporary art.”19 of medium-based groups, local art clubs, amateur groups, and exhibition societies – In the 1930s, exactly how the the most famous of which was the Group of problem of art was to be addressed was a Seven -- had come into existence. These matter of considerable debate. Following organizations functioned in a variety of Barbeau, Hilda Ridley argued that Canadian capacities: they served to promote the artists needed to return to their traditional interests of the arts, recognize excellence, roots and base their work in Canadian organize exhibitions, and address the popular traditions.20 By grounding artistic interests of amateurs and local communities. production in popular traditions Ridley and In the 1930s, the focus and objectives of arts Barbeau believed that the arts could bridge organizations began to change as artists and the disjuncture between themselves and other arts professionals created new bodies society. Stephens suggested that the problem that were intended to meet what they viewed was not easily resolved. Despite what he as the pressing needs of their time. In 1935, saw as a “crying need” for the arts, few for example, Walter Abell helped found the solutions to their problems were Maritime Art Association (MAA). The immediately evident. Ultimately, he MAA’s objective was to link established believed that artists might have to learn to amateur and professional arts organizations accept their lot – poverty and isolation – and in Maritime Canada together in order to co- rely on their internal spiritual strength.21 ordinate arts activities on a regional level, Audrey Alexandra Burr argued in The maintain connections with the National Dalhousie Review that Canadians needed to Gallery, increase the diffusion of art through re-orient their values,22 while Leo Smith traveling exhibitions, and promote arts

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 4 education. In addition, the MAA established interdependence of the several arts a magazine – Maritime Art – to broaden arts and their roots in human experience. discourse. In these ways, the MAA linked Its activities will include efforts to artists with interested amateurs in an bridge the gap between the artist and educational project designed to broaden the public, to develop more knowledge of the arts on a regional level and successful methods of marketing art, maintain connections to a national artistic and to promote more effective art community.26 Almost as soon as it was education.30 created, the MAA and its programme attracted national attention.27 The formation of these societies marked a new stage in the institutional The Toronto Picture Loan Society history of Canadian art. In the 1920s, the (TPLS) had similar objectives. The TPLS institutional history of Canadian art had was a non-profit organization that included been built around the Group of Seven’s both artists and non-artists. Its members nationalist project.31 The new artistic paid a small annual fee that allowed them to societies of the 1930s tended to ignore rent original artwork on a per month basis. aesthetic distinctions and looked to promote “It is hoped,” the art critic Graham McInnes a broader unity among artists. Where the wrote of the Society, “...to make it easier for Group of Seven looked to promote a the public to become acquainted with the particular conception of art and educate the work of contemporary artists and for artists public into the merits of a specific aesthetic, to have their work more widely known.” the new societies abandoned this distinction Such a venture, McInnes noted, was in the face of common problems. In one way designed “to promote a greater or another, artists and intellectuals linked the understanding between the artist and the problems of the arts to the cultural processes public.”28 Toronto’s Allied Arts Council of modernity and viewed self-organization (AAC) and Montreal’s Seven Arts Club as a key strategy in a new form of activism. worked with similar goals. The AAC was The specific tactics that flowed from this intended to draw together artists who strategy included public education, dialogue, worked in different media in order to marketing, and publicity. The new societies facilitate dialogue on common problems and looked not simply to unify artists but to to promote a more generalized policy for the make art more accessible through picture support of the arts in Canada. One of the loans, educational exhibitions and public AAC’s foundational principles was that both lectures. Such tactics, they clearly hoped, the arts and society suffered because of would establish new links between the arts artistic social detachment. “[M]uch good and society. The FCA mobilized a similar creative work is being produced in the discourse and used similar tactics. As a more Dominion; Canada has eleven million widely-based organization, however, it also people; how can the artist and his public be looked to provide more encompassing brought together in such a way that the solutions to the cultural problems of artists may support himself and the public modernity. secure the cultural amenities to which it is entitled?”29 According to Walter Abell, the Organizing the Arts Seven Arts Club employed the same discourse. “Its main concern,” he reported in The Kingston Conference’s Maritime Art, functional objectives were evident in the speakers chosen to address the assembled is the problem of the relation artists. In design, the conference built from between the arts [and] society. It initial tributes to the importance and grandeur desires to promote an understanding of the arts,32 to blunt assessments of the poor of the arts by stressing the economic state of the arts in Canada to

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 5 philosophical discussion of the relationship support that interested Bieler most was the between art and society, to practical policy American New Deal arts progammes which ideas taken from the American state support both directly funded artistic work and programmes designed during the reserved a percentage of construction costs Depression.33 For commentators, such as associated with new public buildings for art.37 Walter Abell, who had been recruited to speak at the Conference, the issue that lay In the course of the Conference, an before artists was significant. Cultural alternative conception of an artists reform, he argued, was needed to realize the organization was articulated by a number of potential of a truly democratic order in which different people. One artist, for example, the arts played a vibrant social role.34 In this urged the body to consider a more union- way, the Conference linked a series of ideas oriented format. In so doing, she articulated together into a single discourse: there was a a perspective in which artists would carry nobility and grandeur to art which was their self-organization into something akin currently suffering under contemporary to a professionalized form of self-regulation economic conditions that were, themselves, that had real power in civil society: symptomatic of broader problems. The solution lay in self-organization designed to If we consider that the doctors and stimulate pragmatic policy options. The best the lawyers and even the engineers means to realize the potential of socially had the sense long ago to organize meaningful art was through a national artistic themselves in order to obtain fair organization. On all these points, there was treatment and to earn a living, surely general agreement among the assembled we should not have to consider artists. Consensus broke down in ourselves on the same level as the consideration of the type of organization agricultural worker who is artists should create. unorganized, and is suffering the consequences. If we do not organize Bieler made little secret of his views. ourselves, nobody else can do it for In his opening comments to the Conference, us.38 he urged the assembled body to create an artists’ federation. This new federation, he As Vancouver painter Jack argued, should not attempt to mould a Shadbolt, Chair of the Conference’s common aesthetic among its members. The Resolutions Committee, explained, this best course of action was a federation that format appeared more radical but looked to worked through local bodies that came accomplish many of the same objectives together at the federal level. As a federation, Bieler had defined as the proper work of his the united body would serve, largely, as a proposed federation. The difference is that it lobby group whose attention would be would have a more interventionist mandate, directed to securing state support for the arts. particularly with regard to the art market. State support, he said, would lead to a The new organization would work for the Canadian artistic renaissance.35 As he “general welfare of practicing artists” by envisioned it, the new federation would helping to organize the art market, staging embrace existing local arts societies and exhibitions, and through “general would “provide facilities for the exchange of propaganda and educational work.” Its chief ideas [and] for national exhibitions.” Bieler’s objective, however, would still be to “go to model for the FCA, then, was that it would the government with [solutions] practical serve as a federated umbrella organization problems, or something similar to the co-ordinating and supporting the work of P.W.A. or the W.P.A. in the United local art societies while lobbying the state for States.”39 a new cultural policy that provides support for the arts in Canada.36 The model of state To resolve the issue, and create an

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 6 organizational structure for the new body, Canadian culture.”42 the assembled artists struck a continuing committee that included some of the leading In terms of structure, the FCA was Canadian artists and critics of the time: to be a national organization. To ensure its Maritime Art editor and Acadian University standing across the country, all regions of art professor Walter Abell, former members Canada were to have representation on its of the Group of Seven Lawren Harris executive. The executive consisted of a (elected in absentia), A.Y. Jackson, and the president, vice-president, executive sculptor Frances Loring. Conference secretary, editor of publications, and the organizer André Bieler was to serve as chairs of seven different working groups that president.40 The continuing committee was were to formulate and guide FCA policy. also to address a number of other resolutions There were two different orders of working passed at the Conference, including those groups. On the one hand, the organization’s that called for an artistic war records constitution called for the FCA to create programme (similar to that which had been medium-based working groups in the areas developed during World War I) an of painting and graphic arts, sculpture, expansion of university-based art industrial arts and crafts, and architecture programmes, national touring exhibitions, and community planning. The other groups and improved arts education in the public addressed different aspects of the schools.41 relationship between the arts and society: education, exhibitions, and public relations. The continuing committee framed a In addition, the constitution set out a plan constitution that attempted to find a middle for the FCA to organize a series of regional ground between these different positions. committees that would serve to integrate The body was to be called the Federation of local societies into the broader national Canadian Artists with a membership federation, but there purpose was, at that consisting of all artists “and related point in time, not clearly specified.43 In May, professional workers.” Non-artists could 1942, Canadian artists reassembled on a join if they were actively interested in the smaller scale in Toronto, to approve this arts and supported the FCA’s aims. The new new constitution and structure, with Bieler constitution stated that the FCA’s mandate elected as the organization’s first president.44 was to unite “all Canadian artists, critics, and related professional workers for The artists assembled in Toronto fellowship, mutual effort in promoting also believed that their newly-formed common aims, and for the expression of the federation needed to begin publicly charting artists’ point of view as a creative factor in a new course for the arts in Canada and national life.” The FCA would be address the more immediate task of specifically dedicated to improving “the establishing a policy with regard to an economic status of the artist by promoting artistic war effort. Kingston Conference markets for his work and by raising his resolutions had urged the federal professional standing […].” It was to government to establish a war records encourage arts education with the aim of programme but, one year later, nothing had fostering “an increased appreciation, been done on the part of either the federal enjoyment, and use of art on the part of the state or Canadian artists, whose new public.” This also included support for the organization had been in a state of flux until National Gallery of Canada. Finally, the its constitution was ratified. To address FCA would issue a national arts magazine, these issues, delegates to the Toronto help co-ordinate the activities and support meeting made use of the regional sub- the efforts of other groups interested in the committee structure established by the same matters, and help research “the constitution. Regional committees were problems affecting the development of established in Montreal, Toronto, and

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Vancouver. The Vancouver committee was situation seemed equally bleak. Following a not given much work and the Toronto resolution at the Kingston Conference, the committee was vested with responsibility to executive had issued a war policy statement examine technical questions about the legal that urged the government to make use of status of the arts and artistic standards. Most artists but no effort had been made to of the work for the immediate direction of indicate what this meant in practice. This FCA policy fell to the Quebec committee, was particularly true with regard to French- chaired by Frederick B. Taylor, a painter, Canadian artists who, it seems, had paid etcher, and drawing instructor at McGill little attention to the statement.49 The University’s architecture school. The executive had also failed to take any steps to Quebec committee was responsible for establish the national publication called for several key policy areas, including an in the FCA’s constitution, the constitution artistic war effort, the place of the arts in itself was unwieldy and potentially post-war reconstruction policy, and unworkable, and no effort had been made to constitutional revisions, if any were begin the process of establishing a post-war needed.45 policy for the arts in Canada. As an organization, Taylor complained, the FCA Taylor was an early and vigorous seemed to lack both cohesion and FCA supporter. The position of authority he direction.50 Measured against its ideals, occupied in the FCA illustrates the degree to Taylor told Walter Abell as early the Spring which Canadian artists were willing to work of 1942, the state of the FCA was across political boundaries and to consider “disappointing and sickening.”51 potentially radical solutions to the problems they confronted. The brother of noted Abell shared Taylor’s views. While business magnate E.P. Taylor, Frederick had the FCA continuing committee presented a followed a different course out of his upper united front in public, what transpired middle-class family. He had been raised in a behind the scenes was another matter. Like conservative family but the Depression had Taylor, Abell tended to look to capitalist radicalized his social views and, like a range political-economy as the root cause of of other young Canadian artists, turned to artistic problems.52 He had, Abell told Marxism in the 1930s.46 Taylor originally Taylor, had wanted to shape the FCA into a trained as an architect, and taught himself more vibrant body but his position was a etching and a variety of other media minority view: “other members of the including painting and drawing.47 committee […] felt it was better to let the thing grow up by the ideas of various Taylor looked on the FCA, and his regional groups.”53 The result was that they work within it, as a key opportunity to were unwilling to provide central direction. address the problems of contemporary Abell did not criticize any specific executive culture and, in particular, the social and members and that may not have been his political marginalization of the arts. He was, point. Like Taylor, what concerned him was however, uncertain about the course Bieler the seeming inability of the new and others were charting. The FCA seemed organization to fulfill the objectives for beset with its own problems that impeded its which it had been established. Arthur ability to provide an activist centre for the Lismer, who also served on the Quebec arts in Canada. Membership was low; in regional sub-committee shared this view. In Ontario the organization was finding a long letter to Bieler in mid-1942, he opposition from already established art outlined what he viewed as a series of key groups. In other parts of the country, it was problems, including the executive’s failure completely unorganized to the point where to communicate with members, what he saw the FCA had virtually no presence in at least as the new organization’s complete lack of one entire province.48 In terms of policy, the social consciousness, poor policy design,

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 8 and a failure to make use of artists who were One of Canada’s main contributions to the interested in contributing to the Federation war, he argued, was industrial production. and its policies.54 For his part, Taylor was By using industrial production as a source of most frustrated with Bieler in whom he artistic inspiration, artists could help seems to have initially placed considerable workers gain a greater sense of their confidence. He believed the general lack of significance and the contribution they were policy and direction discredited the FCA. making. In effect, Taylor seemed to believe The FCA, Taylor told Bieler, could be the that the social importance of industrial work strong voice Canadian artists needed. It held could be elevated by making it the subject of immense potential to serve as a catalyst for artistic interpretation. The artistic wider changes in cultural policy. Its current interpretation of work, he believed, was status, however, made it impossible for the different from propaganda, of which he was organization to play this role.55 not in favour because, in his view, propaganda did not recognize the Art, Society, and War importance of work but instead looked to manipulate the worker. In this, he believed it No where were the FCA’s problems was of little effect. By contrast, the use of more evident than in its efforts to organize art indicated the importance of workers to 57 an artistic war effort. This was one of the cultural development. areas for which Taylor’s Quebec sub- committee had assumed responsibility at Over a period of years, Taylor tried May 1942 Toronto meeting that elected to interest the federal government in establishing an industrial war arts Bieler president and ratified the 58 organization’s constitution. The Quebec programme, with little effect. What was section had organized a petition urging the important from the point of view of Taylor’s federal government to use the capacities of interaction with the FCA, however, was that artists in the war effort and secured over the organization took no public stand on industrial war art and few other artists nine hundred signatures. In Taylor’s view, 59 the war effort was one of the opportunities followed his example. In fact, exactly what that the FCA was missing because it constituted an artistic war effort proved provided a perfect opportunity for the arts in much less clear in the minds of other artists Canada to use creative activity in a socially and the FCA executive then it did for meaningful way. By demonstrating the Taylor. The petition Taylor’s sub-committee socially meaningful work the arts could do organized made significant claims on behalf in time of war, Taylor believed, the arts of the arts. The use of art in the war effort, could illustrate the merits of artistic social the petition explained, would promote re-integration and begin the process of national unity, contribute to the war’s bridging the gap between the arts and success, encourage a “healthy spirit” among society.56 workers, help reduce industrial accidents, and could even stimulate attention to diet. Taylor had taken this objective To accomplish these aims, the petition seriously on a personal level; his own recommended that artists be used in some actions illustrate one potential way he felt official capacity in factories and on military the arts could bridge the gap between bases, “in accordance with special talents themselves and society. He spent the latter they may have.” It did not explain these half of the war painting industrial production special talents and specific scenes and workers in war industries. recommendations were vague. The FCA Industrial war art, he argued, served as a believed that artists could be used to model of socially engaged and productive decorate union halls and nurseries and used art. He believed it could make an immediate to carry out unspecified “educational work” contribution to Canada’s war production. among unions. Its key proposal was that the

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 9 government create a commission consisting January of 1943, the PMO rejected the idea of government officials and FCA members of a meeting with the Prime Minister but to determine the precise details of an artists suggested that it might be possible for artists war effort. In effect, the FCA was to meet with the defense minister. Taylor recommending that the government create a originally accepted this idea on behalf of the commission to figure out what the members FCA but soon came to the opinion that even of the FCA should actually be doing. What this alternative was not viable. The FCA’s was more significant, and was perhaps the entire approach, Bieler came to realize, had FCA’s real objective, was that this been naïve. In place of a face-to-face commission would not expire at war’s end. meeting, or even a presentation of the Instead, it would be reconstituted as a petition, he suggested that the FCA mail it to federal ministry of fine arts.60 the PMO or the Wartime Information Board, try to garner some publicity from it, and The petition -- and, as a result, what then let the matter rest while they moved on was really the sum total of the FCA’s war to other things.64 programme – met with little success. The FCA executive tied the success of its Taylor viewed the FCA’s first petition and artists war effort policy to interaction with government as a serious obtaining a personal interview with Prime defeat for artists, but others members of the Minister Mackenzie King. Their plan was executive were less certain. It was clear that for Bieler to lead a small delegation of the FCA had met with little success but, artists to meet King, discuss their ideas and National Secretary Rik Kettle argued even proposals, and explain the philosophy before the PMO finally rejected the idea of behind them.61 Neither King nor his staff, meeting the Prime Minister, this might have however, had much interest in meeting with been for the best. What would have a group of artists and even less in discussing happened, Kettle wondered, if the FCA the philosophy of art. Brooke Claxton, petition had been accepted and met with a Member of Parliament for the Montreal positive response? The truth of the matter riding where Taylor lived, and one of the was that the FCA had no way to organize an key advocates of the arts in the federal artistic war effort in Canada. The provincial government, conveyed the FCA’s messages organizations in British Columbia and to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).62 Ontario had expressed disinterest in the Claxton told Taylor directly that the FCA’s project while other artists’ organizations, proposals were too vague for the PMO. He such as the MAA, had started their own urged the Federation to revise their petition programmes on a regional level. In addition, into a concrete proposal that isolated Kettle also wondered out loud about the specific problems, indicated how these degree to which Canadian artists were problems could be addressed, and provided willing to participate in whatever a plan for the implementation of change. programme was ultimately established. FCA proposals, he said, should also cite “[T]he whole position,” Kettle told Bieler, specific examples to illustrate their points. If “is not so simple as getting the petition the FCA did obtain a meeting with the Prime accepted. […] [W]e are not asking the Minister, his Principal Secretary Walter government for jobs for artists but I fear Turnbull told Taylor, that meeting must very much that most artist could not and involve more than simply saying that artists would not leave their present jobs to do war wanted to contribute to the war effort.63 art jobs […].”65 Kettle also felt that the FCA’s policy did not place enough emphasis The FCA began its petition drive on self-organization and self-direction in the after its 1942 Toronto meeting. Through the arts. “The government,” he told rest of that year and into 1943, the FCA Saskatchewan artist Ernst Lindner, “is not found its overtures to the PMO stalled. In going to be very impressed by an

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 10 organization that simply asks for all sorts of more stream-lined institutional structure things to be done, and apparently shows no that, executive members felt, allowed the signs of doing anything itself.”66 Said FCA to become a more effective differently: the FCA’s programme appeared organization. Taylor’s Quebec sub- more like a wish list than a concrete and committee working with Kettle produced a specific plan for the arts and Canadian set of constitutional revisions that amounted culture. For Taylor the problem was to a new constitution. They abandoned the twofold. First, he was deeply and personally idea of working sections organized committed to the war and wanted to see all according to media or educational activity in sectors of Canadian society do what could favour of straight regional representation. be done in its support. Second, he believed Local groups were encouraged to take the FCA had missed an opportunity to initiatives, while the central office was to act address the wider problems that had led to as an information exchange that could also its creation in the first place. The war provide financial assistance to local bodies. afforded an opportunity to bring the arts In effect, the new organization came closer back into social life. He had pursued these to Bieler’s original plan of using the FCA as objectives on a personal level through his an umbrella group that drew local and industrial war art. Kettle did not disagree regional art societies together at the national with these objectives but his cooler response level for common action. Kettle also worked to the failure of the FCA’s war effort to promote interchange between the FCA petition indicated that the ways in which and other existing artists groups, FCA objectives were understood varied establishing a process through which considerably among its members. existing local societies could affiliate with the FCA. This innovation was intended to increase FCA membership without actually having to recruit members. By early 1943, The Cultural Politics of the effects were already evident, as FCA 67 Accommodation membership had risen to 400. To streamline the organization, the proposed In the wake of its war policy failure, new constitution instituted classes of the FCA turned to other matters. Two issues membership with regional executives given were of particular importance: institutional final authority to determine into which class organization and the place of the arts within membership applications fell. post-war reconstruction policy. Institutional What was more important than organization was a key problem because, structure were organizational objectives. In key members believed, its current structure the minds of many members, the FCA’s made it impossible for the FCA to organize purpose remained vague. “I feel,” Kettle the arts in support of an activist agenda. wrote to RCA President L.A.C. Panton, Post-war reconstruction policy was “that we have not yet begun to discuss the important because it constituted the next fundamental problems that […] concern the opportunity to revise the overall orientation position of the artists and craftsman after the of cultural policy in Canada. Taylor played a war.” “Are we,” he asked, “interested in key role in the reformation of the FCA’s merely an extension of the present situation, structure and was a focal point of debates where most of us teach etc., and sell an about post-war reconstruction policy. As occasional picture, or are we interested in National Secretary, Kettle worked with the artists finding a new place in a new post Taylor to address FCA weaknesses by war world[?]”68 The fact that artists were expanding membership and refashioning its still wondering about their social roles and constitution. The end result of the process functions, Kettle told Bieler, was a clear was a stronger statement of objectives and a indication that they are “not yet sure how to

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 11 go about functioning.”69 For Pearl maintenance of artworks required further McCarthy, editor of the FCA’s Ontario spending and the FCA argued for a new regional newsletter, this issue was system of art scholarships to further fundamental. “Artists find one dominant and advanced training and for more attention to not so easily settled problem of grand be devoted to art education in general. strategy,” she wrote in 1943. “If our country Perhaps the most innovative proposal was is to have more space for real values such as for a system of arts field workers who could art, where do we begin to weave them into examine the cultural conditions in life? People speak of ‘getting the world by communities across the country and make the tail’ but often find that […] the world recommendations to improve local artistic has no tail by which it can be grasped.”70 and cultural conditions.73 McCarthy viewed this issue as not only the concern but the responsibility of the artist. A The FCA’s first venture into post- new social place and role for the arts, she war planning adopted a model of artistic argued in other circumstances, would come development that was, in important ways, to reality only through the arts themselves.71 different from its constitutional focus on vibrant local arts societies supported by a The FCA approached this issue in central umbrella group. In place of this de- both a general and a specific way. On the centralized and “grassroots” model, initial general level, the FCA recast the war as a FCA post-war planning looked to an period of marked change in Canadians’ institutionally centralized model run through social consciousness. The collective nature the NGC. The FCA justified this plan, in of the war effort and the values in the name part, with reference to what it viewed as its of which it was being fought, the FCA potentially positive effects on national suggested, would lead to a new culture in identity and, in part, with reference to the Canada built around a new cultural policy. ideal of cultural and social holism that, it The questions were where artists fit in this believed, followed from the closer new culture and how would a new cultural integration of art and life. In fact, FCA policy affect them? “[T]he trend of present discourse constructed the two aspects of its day democracy,” one 1943 FCA position proposed new arts policy as inseparable. paper stated, “points to a form of social “Art,” the same FCA policy document read, order in which art will enter more fully into “is an integrating element in all phases of the common life.”72 On the specific level, our social activity.” Through this centralized the FCA argued that a restructured National system of art institutions, art would forge Gallery provided the means to accomplish links between the diverse elements of this goal. The FCA took it as axiomatic that Canada’s population.74 the National Gallery constituted the central artistic institution in Canada; post-war Not everyone within the FCA cultural policy needed, therefore, to be supported this plan. Behind the scenes, realized through this institution. The FCA’s Frederick Taylor was working out his own first post-war policy plan called for a ideas about the most effective approach for massive increase in federal spending on the the Federation to address the problematic National Gallery in order to develop a relationship between art and life. In comprehensive extension system that linked February 1944, he circulated a draft of his smaller local and regional galleries to the ideas to the FCA executive. Entitled “A national center. In communities where there Policy and Programme for the Federation of were no art galleries, the FCA plan called Canadian Artists”, Taylor’s document began for the creation of NGC branch galleries. by recounting the original objectives of the Exhibitions could then be circulated across Kingston Conference. The FCA had been the country through this web of inter- created, it read, because existing arts connecting galleries. The proper storage and societies were unwilling or unable to deal

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 12 with the crucial issues of the day the character and scope of artistic work. In confronting the arts. Two things, it the 1930s, Canadian leftists had been continued, needed to be accomplished if the particularly vocal in their criticism of status of the artist in society were to change. Canadian art and what they viewed as its First, all artists needed to work together as a social detachment. In particular communists united front. In this regard, Taylor’s draft faulted Canadian painters for their pre- policy urged the FCA to begin a large-scale occupation with landscape and concomitant membership drive. Second, he argued that neglect of social issues.77 This situation, at meaningful cultural change required least according to Giscome, was changing political activism. because artists had become more ideologically engaged and more interested in If the status of the artist in society is the relationship between art and society. to be improved the state of society Evidence of this shift, she said, could be has to change. Artists are potentially found in the return of the human figure to the most articulate group in the Canadian art. In effect, what impressed community; progressive political Giscome was the distance Canadian artists parties appreciate this fact, and are had begun to establish from the nationalist accordingly taking steps to win the landscapes of the 1920s. Such a distance, in support of artists. Politicians know the view of Canadian communists, that they must earn that support, and suggested a new interest in society and they are prepared to earn it. illustrated a “new growth” on the part of the Ultimately, artists will have to agree arts in Canada.78 Within the FCA, however, upon “en bloc” support of the single Taylor’s ideas were at first ignored; then political party most sympathetic to contested. their cause, and support it with all their force until it attains power.75 Through the course of 1944, the FCA began to collaborate with other artists’ organization and to add to its original plans. In the Spring of 1944, new RCA President In his plan, Taylor did not specify Ernest Forseby called together the party to which he was referring, but representatives of various arts bodies in there was little doubt about his own political Canada in an effort to work out a common sympathies and the political direction in policy for the post-war era. Forseby’s which he felt artists should move. He urged conference led to the formation of the the FCA to develop a more strictly labour Canadian Artists Liaison Committee, which union format and to consider affiliation with later became the Canadian Arts Council. It the Canadian trade-union movement. The also established the framework for what FCA, he wrote, needed to dedicate itself to became an artists’ brief to the federal improving society. If it was unwilling to commission on reconstruction.79 The brief commit itself to social and political that was presented in June of that year activism, he stated bluntly, its members’ adopted a similar discourse of social time was better spent on their own projects engagement and cultural democracy that or working on a local level.76 Walter Abell had developed at the Kingston Conference. It rejected the idea of art as an Taylor’s views were echoed by at elitist luxury separated from social life, least some other activists on the Canadian arguing instead that art should be linked to left. A number of Canadian communists society and federal policy should be found recent developments on the Canadian designed to facilitate this ideal. The best art scene impressive. Lucille Giscome, for means to achieve this aim, the artists brief example, argued in the Canadian Tribune argued, was through the new institution of that Canadian artists had begun to reconsider community centres.80 While the idea of

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 13 community centres likely did not arise the post-war reconstruction period offered within the FCA,81 the organization’s artists a second opportunity to begin a executive was fascinated by what they process of historic change. “[T]he viewed as their potential. Lawren Harris, importance of the present opportunity,” he who had replaced Bieler as president, urged told Wyn Wood in the same letter, “to the rest of the executive to support the idea. achieve immense progress in the whole Community centres, he believed, provided matter of getting the arts and artists back the most effective means to improve the into life, can hardly be exaggerated.” What quality of life in Canada. The modern age, was required was a broad and radical Harris argued in a discourse that bore strong perspective. “I believe that a unique and affinities to that developed in the 1930s to great opportunity to strike a blow for the explain the social detachment of art, was whole of culture in the whole of Canada, characterized by increased social will be irretrievably lost if the broadest regimentation and expanded bureaucratic possible conception of the place of the arts power. The community centre provided the in life is not included in the [artists’] means for ordinary citizens to develop their brief.”85 For her part Wyn Wood agreed. creative faculties in a life that was otherwise The Federation, she told him, had become defined by conformity and standardization. fixated on community centres “as the be-all “Herein,” Harris wrote in his defense of the and end-all” of cultural development.86 community centre idea, “we see a latent possibility of opposition between a nation- While he did not publicly break with wide organization of economic control or the FCA, Taylor decided to take a more the regimentation of an all-pervading aggressive and politicized approach to government on one hand, and on the other, community centres that was in keeping with the freedom essential to the creative life.” his increased focus on politicized activism For Harris, attention to the creative needs, as as the key to cultural change. Where Harris much as to the material needs, of citizens supported publicity efforts and lobbying was a mark of a nation’s level of government, Taylor directly contacted civilization.82 The community centre was to politicians in the Montreal area and asked be a site of artistic and creative activity. It them, in view of the up-coming election, would be a location for art lessons and whether or not they were supportive of the public lectures and would serve, as well, as artists’ position. He also emphasized what an adult education centre. It would house he viewed as the political nature of cultural book and film libraries, fine arts and dance policy in speeches to Montreal community studios, as well as exhibition rooms.83 As groups. He described his approach to Kettle President, Harris made community centres after he spoke to the Montreal local of the an FCA priority and used his position to Canadian Authors Association (CAA). “I publicize the ideas in the artists’ brief.84 pulled no punches. I brought politics right into their horrid little lives and made them Taylor supported the community like the idea that they might just as well lie centre idea, but it appears more out of down and let the sod be thrown upon them if loyalty and his desire for an artistic united they don’t wake up and do something.” “[A] front then a sincere belief in their potential. whole lot of good,” he concluded, “is He felt that there was nothing inherently resulting.”87 wrong with community centres but also believed they detracted from more important To what extent this was true was a issues. “I judge,” he wrote the sculptor matter of perspective. The CAA’s local Elizabeth Wyn Wood, “that the broader secretary told Taylor that his speech had, in aspects of art in society […] are being lost fact, done the opposite, upsetting members sight of […].” For Taylor, this distraction of the local as opposed to galvanizing them. was potentially significant because he felt What they believed, she said, was that

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 14

Taylor had been advocating political FCA needed to make further changes. He affiliation on the part of artists. After he left, found its current policy orientation she told Taylor, she had had to reassure frustratingly cautious. In its current form, he members that this was not FCA policy and told Lawren Harris, the FCA needed to that the organization aimed to win the recognize that it simply could not bring support of all parties for its agenda.88 The enough pressure to bear on government to secretary was right about FCA policy but push it toward meaningful cultural change.94 wrong about Taylor’s views. Since at least The best course of action, Taylor now April 1944, Taylor had been openly believed was to dissolve the Federation and discussing what he viewed as the connection work with the Canadian Artists Liaison between art and politics.89 Taylor could Committee, as the broader, more recognize and even accept the merits of de- encompassing and hence more influential politicized public good arguments, but he body the arts needed.95 Moreover, this also focused on what he described as the broader framework needed to include people “progressive” nature of the relationship other than artists. As he later wrote to between art and society. By 1945 he was Harris, Canadian artists should “openly and openly linking the “progressive” nature of closely align ourselves with those with art to the degree to which it associated with whom we logically have the most in the labour movement, the view he had common, the masses of the people […].”96 articulated internally the year before. “The realization of the artists’ proposal,” he wrote Other leading members of the FCA in one article on the subject, “depends upon were not sure of how to respond to Taylor’s the defeat of the same anti-progressive proposals. Some, such as Ernst Lindner, forces which obstruct all social progress, of Chairman of the FCA’s Saskatchewan the interests that oppose such measures as regional section, opposed them for their own family allowances [and] health insurance political reasons. Lindner looked on labour […].”90 as a self-interested part of society with which he seems to have wanted little to do. Taylor’s views on political activism Moreover, Lindner suggested it was the and the problems artists’ confronted character of art to transcend social divisions. assumed that there was an inter-dependence In this sense, Lindner seemed to suggest, art between art and organized labour. Both art was not tied to any particular social and labour, Taylor wrote Robert Ayre, the perspective. In Taylor’s view, Lindner’s editor of Canadian Art,91 were marginalized position smacked of cultural elitism and he by the capitalist economic system. In this found such an artistic philosophy socially sense, both were necessarily opposed to meaningless in any practical sense. In his capitalist social values and, hence, could view, he replied, the arts needed to make common cause.92 For both art and understand “the necessity of realistic action” labour, progress meant opposition to to transform their ideals into reality.97 Others capitalism. If the condition of artists were to acknowledged Taylor’s ideas had merit. improve, if art were to again become Taylor’s plan to dissolve the FCA into the socially meaningful, it needed to connect Canadian Artists Liaison Committee, Rik with life. This did not mean, he later Kettle wrote Lawren Harris, did, in fact, explained to a left-wing journalist, that the reflect the spirit of the ideas discussed at the job of artists was to provide propaganda for original Kingston Conference.98 In another the political left, much less to serve as a letter, Kettle referred to Taylor’s plan “big, leadership van-guard for the working class. bold, extremely well thought out […] and in The best course of action was for artists to very many ways it is the kind of thing that work with labour to develop and articulate should be done.” He opposed it, however, alternative systems of cultural values.93 To because he was not sure the plan would accomplish the aim, Taylor believed that the work and he thought political activism

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 15 gambled a great deal. Quite simply, Kettle corrosive cultural dynamic that the arts believed the risk was too great.99 Harris needed to overcome in order to achieve opposed Taylor’s proposal on other grounds. social re-integration. This point was re- The problem with Taylor’s proposal, Harris emphasized at the Kingston Conference and felt, was that it did not consider artists’ in the initial FCA programme. As World audience. It was, he said, strong on War II ended, the FCA shifted ground and “producer appeal” but neglected to consider embraced the consumerism of art, among the consumer.100 other initiatives, as its solution to the social detachment of the arts. For Taylor, this shift FCA policies had, in fact, become was deeply disappointing. “The FCA,” he increasingly concerned with the art wrote to Kettle, “was organized and consumer as World War II drew to a close. constituted to fulfil a need, to do work that In supporting the idea of community centres, no existing artists’ organizations were Harris mobilized a discourse of cultural organized and constituted and/or able and alienation that stultified human creativity. included to do.” By early 1946, he believed For ordinary working Canadians, the it had abandoned its historic opportunities, community centre supposedly drew art into elected to “go into business” and had their lives by establishing a space for their become “just another artists’ own creativity: for art education, artistic organization.”102 Others accepted that Taylor practice, or learning. In this sense, the was right and the FCA had changed FCA’s programme was concerned with direction. For Rik Kettle this was not a creativity on the level of the ordinary problem. The FCA may not be doing the job Canadian. The new focus on consumerism it had been created to do, he told Harris in moved in a different direction. In the Fall of late 1945, but had now adopted a new 1945, the newly-formed Ottawa FCA branch mission which, he felt, was at least equally announced that it had entered into an valuable.103 In the face of the FCA’s new agreement with a local department store to direction, and confronted with either maintain a gallery “for the sale and rental of hostility or unsupportive sympathy from pictures by contemporary Canadian other members of the executive, Taylor artists.”101 Taylor’s own Quebec had also withdrew. He resigned from the FCA begun to run exhibitions aimed at expanding executive and left the organization freer to the demand for art. chart an a-political and consumerist course to artistic engagement that he felt powerless The FCA’s new focus on artistic to prevent.104 "I should like to be able to consumerism illustrated how differently the explain my philosophy to you," Taylor had issue of arts’ relationship to society could be written to Robert Ayre in the Fall of 1945, understood by members of the same "but the gulf seems almost impossible."105 organization. Where Taylor looked to find ways for the arts to work in common with “progressive” social forces to help construct a new cultural order, other FCA members Activism and Accommodation turned to marketing in an effort to achieve a wider diffusion of art within society while Taylor’s self-imposed eclipse within solidifying the economic position of the the FCA drew one chapter of its history to a artist. In the 1930s, the forefront of close. History admits no straight-forward Canadian artistic criticism and artists social lessons that can be mobilized in the present. organization identified the development of The lessons taken away from the early the modern economy as the key problem history of the FCA depend on one’s confronting the arts. Within this framework, perspective. For Bieler, the FCA’s history Walter Abell, Marius Barbeau and others was a story of changing values that led, had isolated consumerism as a particularly ultimately, to the creation of a state cultural

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 16 infrastructure after World War II. For dominated artistic thought in Canada since Taylor, the FCA’s early history was a story the early 1930s proved difficult to attain. In of missed opportunities. For Harris and turning their activism to pragmatic grounds Kettle, the history of the FCA could be – to community centres, the expansion of written as a history of institutional change in galleries, and new means of merchandising which self-organization addressed the art – the artists who organized the FCA both immediate problems confronted by the arts did and did not “solve” the problems that under conditions of modernity. In terms of had initially animated self-organization. cultural activism, the organization of the Instead, what Canadian artists discovered FCA illustrates one way in which artists was a way to alleviate the worst effects of responded to the problems of modernity. In artistic social and economic marginalization particular, it illustrates the process of self- through state policy, community organization and cultural activism as a programmes, and marketing. In effect, the response to social, cultural, economic, and FCA developed a means to effectively political marginalization. In effect it mediate their relationship with society, even demonstrates how certain forms of cultural while root problems of social detachment activism were built into the character and remained in place. structure of Canadian modernity. Activist artists of the 1930s and 1940s were, after all, The relationship between art and responding to the problems of modernity society did not disappear as a concern of that developed despite their desires and in artists after World War II. Instead, it took face of concerted efforts to address the same different forms and was articulated through problems. This was a key theme in 1930s other discourses. The rise of the Montreal cultural criticism: the problems artists avant-garde in the late 1940s, for example, confronted related to broader socio- was propelled by similar concerns.107 The economic, cultural, technological, and activists who organized the FCA may have political change. accomplished a great deal within the context of their lives. What they accomplished, It also demonstrates that exactly however, ensured that artistic activism where this activism could lead was a continued. If their policies addressed controversial issue among artists. As Jeffrey immediate concerns and mediated the worst Brison and others have suggested, the course effects of modernity on the arts, the of cultural activism is complicated by historical processes that triggered activism policies of state, power relations within remained in place. In this sense, the lesson society, and ideology.106 What FCA activism that one might draw from the FCA’s early demonstrated, as well, was the wider history is that cultural activism is as currents of change in the arts. Artistic endemic to modernity as the problems it activism was, at the time, deeply divided. seeks to address. The desire for constructive social engagement could be widely supported but could also take different forms and mean different things to different artists. What is perhaps most telling in this chapter in the institutional history of Canadian art is that a final resolution to the concerns that had

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 17

1André Bieler to H.O. McCurry, 5 February 1941, André Bieler papers Queen’s University Archives [hereafter QUA].

2André Bieler, “Preface” to André Bieler and Elizabeth Harrison, eds., Proceedings: Kingston Conference (Kingston:1943), v.

3André Bieler, “The Kingston Conference: Ten Years Afterward” Canadian Art (Summer 1951): 150-2.

4Maria Tippett, Making Culture: English-Canadian Institutions and the Arts before the Massey Commission (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990).

5Jeffrey Brison, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Canada: American Philanthropy and the Arts and Letters in Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005).

6Renato Poggioli, The Theory of the Avant-Garde trans. G. Fitzgerald (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968), Peter Burger, Theory of the Avant-Garde trans. M. Snow (Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1984)

7Hélène Sicotte, “À Kingston, il y a 50 ans, la conférence des artistes canadiens: Débat sur la place de l'artiste dans la société” Journal of Canadian Art History XIV,2 (1992): 28-49.

8Leo Smith, “Music: Some Problems of To-Day” Queen’s Quarterly XXXIX, 3 (August 1932), 476.

9Ibid., 482.

10Arthur Lismer, "The World of Art" Canadian Comment (January: 1933),

11Arthur Lismer, "The Value, Meaning and Place of Art in Education" Dalhousie Review VIII (1928-29), 378.

12 Marius Barbeau, “Quebec Wood Carvers” Dalhousie Review XII, 2 (July 1932), 182. Barbeau wrote: “the independent evolution of collective art in off parts of the world has come to a stop, and given way to centralization.” Such centralization, as Barbeau explained elsewhere, was the bane of an artistically-supportive environment. See also Marius Barbeau, “Two Master Carvers of Ancient Quebec” Dalhousie Review XV (1935-36), 287.

13Barbeau, “Quebec Wood Carvers”, 185.

14Ibid., 187.

15A.M. Stephens, “Poetry and Economics” Queen’s Quarterly XXXVIII,1 (Winter 1931), 23-4, where Stephens suggests one of the problems of artists today may be that they were not committed enough to artistic production. They needed, he said, to be willing to pay the price themselves – the cost – of being an artist and that included the economic cost.

16Ibid., 21.

17Ibid.

Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 4, 1 (June 2011) 18

18Graham McInnes, “Canadian Art” Queen’s Quarterly XLV,2 (Summer 1938), 239-44. For similar concerns, see Barbeau, “Two master Carvers of Ancient Quebec”, 287-92, which charts what Barbeau saw as the rise and demise of a French-Canadian architectural tradition.

19Walter Abell, "Looking Back on Art Week" Maritime Art (February: 1941), 4.

20Hilda Ridley, “Art and Canadian Life” Dalhousie Review XIV (1934-5), 217.

21Stephens, “Poetry and Economics,” 23-4.

22Audrey Alexandra Burr, “Art and Canadian Life” Dalhousie Review XV (1935-6), 340-2.

23Smith, “Music,” 485.

24H.S.M. Carver, “Paint and Politics” Canadian Forum XV, 182 (March 1936), 19.

25 On the early institutional history of Canadian art, see Jean Trudel, “The Montreal Society of Artists” Journal of Canadian Art History XIII,1 (1990): 61-87 and Christine Sowiak, "Contemporary Canadian Art: Locating Identity" in David Taras and Beverly Rasporich, eds., Passion for Identity: Canadian Studies for the 21st Century (Toronto: Nelson Thomson 2001), 251-73.

26For descriptions of the MAA’s programme, see. On Abell, see Hélene Sicotte, “Walter Abell au Canada, 1928-1944: contribution d'un critique d'art américain au discours canadien en faveur de l'intégration sociale de l'art” Journal of Canadian Art History XI,1-2 (1988): 88-106 and Kirk Niergarth, “ ‘Missionary for Culture’: Walter Abell, Maritime Art and Cultural Democracy, 1928-1944” Acadiensis XXXVI,1 (Autumn 2006): 3-28.

27National Gallery of Canada, Annual Report of the Board of Trustees (1935-36), 9-10

28Graham McInnes, "The World of Art" Saturday Night (7 November 1939), 25.

29Graham McInnes, "The Allied Arts Council" Saturday Night (18 February 1939), 24.

30Walter Abell, Maritime Art (December: 1940), 18.

31For a thorough discussion of the Group of Seven, see Charles C. Hill, The Group of Seven: Art for a Nation (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1995).

32Proceedings, 6-7 and 18; Wyly Grier, "Sociability In Art" Saturday Night (26 July 1941), 15. Former Group of Seven member and soon-to-be FCA activist A.Y. Jackson captured the tone of tributes to the arts when he noted “if we leave any trace of ourselves in history it will not be through the records printed in our blue books, but did we create great music or drama, or literature or through a triumph in research such as Banting's discovery of insulin.” Proceedings, 19.

33Of particular interest to Canadian artists were the Works Project Administration (WPA) and the Public Works of Art Project (PWA).

34Walter Abell, “Art and Democracy” in Proceedings, 23, 25-7, 29, and 31.

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35Ibid., 8. Bieler also felt that the new federation could contribute to the growth of national identity in Canada, although he did not fully explain why. Instead, he asserted that the active promotion of the arts provided the basis for a Canadian national identity, and left the matter at that. Ibid. 17.

36Ibid., 68.

37 Maritime Art (February-March: 1942), 102

38Proceedings., 37.

39Ibid., 98.

40Ibid., 110 and 118.

41Ibid., 110-5.

42Federation Bulletin [1942], n.p.

43Ibid., Federation Bulletin [1942, 2nd issue], 9.

44Federation Bulletin [1942, 2nd issue], 2; [Montreal] Standard, 9 May 1942.

45Federation Bulletin [1942, 2nd issue], 2; [Montreal] Standard, 9 May 1942.

46On Taylor’s family background, see Richard Rohmer, E.P. Taylor: The Biography of Edward Plunkett Taylor (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1978). On his art, see Luis de Moura Sorbal, “Peinture et luttes sociales: Talking Union de Frederick B. Taylor” Journal of Canadian Art History IV,2 (1978):111-20. On the political radicalization of the arts in the 1930s, see Hazen Size, “The Thirties: A Very Personal Memoir” in Victor Hoar, ed., The Great Depression: Essays and Memoirs from Canada and the United States (Toronto: Copp Clark Publishing, 1969); Toby Gordon Ryan, Stage Left: Canadian Theatre in the Thirties, A Memoir (Toronto: CTR Publications, 1931) and Merrily Weisbord, The Strangest Dream: Canadian Communists, the Spy Trials and the Cold War (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1983).

47Frederick B. Taylor to D.O.C. D.N.D. Montreal P.Q., 8 September 1939, Frederick B. Taylor Papers, QUA; Frederick B. Taylor to Edmund Dyonnet, 16 October 1933, Frederick B. Taylor papers, NAC.

48Federation Bulletin [1942], 4; “Re: First Annual Meeting of the Federation of Canadian Artists. May 1st and 2nd, 1942” TS in André Bieler papers, QUA; Rik Kettle to Elizabeth [Wyn Wood], 17 November 1942 [copy], André Bieler papers QUA.

49Federation Bulletin [1942, 2nd issue], 4. Frederick B. Taylor to André Bieler, 14 January 1943, André Bieler papers, QUA.

50Frederick B. Taylor to André Bieler, 13 June 1942; Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA; Frederick B. Taylor to Garnard [Rik] Kettle, 7 May 1943, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

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51Frederick B. Taylor to Walter Abell, 23 January 1942, Frederick B. Taylor papers, NAC.

52Abell, “Art and Democracy,” 31-2.

53Walter Abell to Frederick B. Taylor, 12 February 1942, Frederick B. Taylor papers, NAC.

54Arthur Lismer to André Bieler, 19 July 1942, André Bieler papers, QUA.

55Frederick B. Taylor to André Bieler, 13 June 1942, André Bieler papers, QUA.

56Frederick B. Taylor, “Painting War Production” World Affairs 8,5 (1943), 17-8.

57Frederick B. Taylor to David Petegorsky, n.d., Frederick B. Taylor papers, QUA; Frederick B. Taylor to John Grierson, 30 May 1943, Frederick B. Taylor papers, QUA; Frederick B. Taylor to C.D. Howe, 24 February 1942, Frederick B. Taylor papers, QUA.

58Rielle Thomson to Frederick B. Taylor, 16 October 1944, Frederick B, Taylor papers, QUA.

59For a treatement of another neglected socially engaged artist working from a similar perspective as Taylor, see David Frank, “No More Walls: The Social Realist Art of Fred Ross” New Maritimes 13,2 (November/December 1994): 6.

60Petition, “Au Trés Honorable Premier Ministre du Canada”, André Bieler papers, QUA; André Bieler to Frederick B. Taylor, 7 July 1942, André Bieler papers, QUA; “Resolutions Passed at a meeting of members on 2nd December 1942” TS, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

61Frederick B. Taylor to André Bieler, 5 July 1942, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

62On Claxton see David Jay Bercuson, True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898-1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).

63Brooke Claxton to Frederick B. Taylor, 29 July 1942, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA; Frederick B. Taylor to Arthur Lismer, 30 July 1942, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA; Walter Turnbull to Frederick B. Taylor, 27 October 1942, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA; Brook Claxton to Frederick B. Taylor, 19 July 1942 [copy], André Bieler papers, QUA.

64André Bieler to Frederick B. Taylor, 31 January 1943, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

65Rik Kettle to André Bieler, 19 November 1942, André Bieler papers, QUA.

66Rik Kettle to Ernst Lindner, 25 January 1943 [copy], André Bieler papers, QUA.

67Rik Kettle to Robert Bruce, 29 October 1942 [copy]; Rik Kettle to Mr. Fortnall, 21 March 1943 [copy]; Rik Kettle to Doris MacPherson, 7 January 1943 [copy]; Rik Kettle to André Bieler, 28 February 1943; Report, “Special National Committee, Montreal, Draft of Proposed Constitution” TS, all in André Bieler papers, QUA.

68Rick Kettle to L.A.C. Panton, 14 March 1943 [copy], André Bieler papers, QUA.

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69Rik Kettle to André Bieler, 3 July 1943, André Bieler papers, QUA.

70Pearl McCarthy, “Editor’s Forward” Federation of Canadian Artists: Ontario Regional Bulletin (May 1943), 1.

71Globe and Mail, 1 July 1944.

72“A Plan for the Extension of the National Gallery of Canada” TS; André Bieler papers, QUA; Rik Kettle to L.A.C. Panton, 14 March 1943, [copy] André Bieler papers, QUA.

73“A Plan for the Extension of the National Gallery of Canada”; see also National Gallery of Canada, Annual Report of the Board of Trustees (1944-45), 6.

74“A Plan for the Extension of the National Gallery of Canada.” One interesting point about this proposal that FCA planning documents ignored was the degree to which it was consistent with the National Gallery’s own conception of the role it could plan in Canadian society. Since at least the mid-1930s, National Gallery annual reports had been arguing for a similar type of expansion and for national circulating exhibitions. See National Gallery of Canada, Annual Report of the Board of Trustees (1935-36), 6-7.

75Frederick B. Taylor, “A Policy and Program for the Federation of Canadian Artists” Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

76See also Frederick B. Taylor, “On Art and Canadian Labour” Canadian Tribune (17 November 1945), 12.

77Jehanne Bietry Salinger. “Comment on Art: Behind Canadian Art” Canadian Forum (May: 1930), 288.

78Lucille Giscome, “Canadian Artists Show New Growth at Exhibit” Canadian Tribune (22 April 1944), 14. See also Canadian Tribune (4 November 1944), 22 and Canadian Tribune (8 November 1944).

79[Federation of Canadian Artists] Bulletin (29 May 1944); [Federation of Canadian Artists] Bulletin (February 1944), 1-2.

80[Toronto] Globe and Mail, 17 June 1944; [Toronto] Globe and Mail 22 June 1944; Elizabeth Wyn Wood, “Art Goes to Parliament” Canadian Art II,1 (1944), 3-5 and 41.

81This seems clear as there was no discussion of community centres between members of the FCA executive or in FCA policy papers before it began to work with the RCA and other artists organizations. Instead, as noted above, the FCA had been primarily concerned with policies oriented toward extending the importance of the National Gallery as the key Canadian artistic institution.

82“Comments from Lawren Harris” in “Community Art Centres: A Growing Movement” Canadian Art II,1 (1944), 62-3.

83Richard D. Crouch, “A Community Art Centre in Action” Canadian Art II,1 (1944), 22-8.

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84Federation of Canadian Artists, Presidential Newsletter (May 1944).

85Frederick B. Taylor to Elizabeth Wyn Wood, 23 May 1944, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

86Elizabeth Wyn Wood to Frederick B. Taylor, 23 June 1944, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

87Frederick B. Taylor to Rik Kettle, 23 May 1945, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

88Doris Hedge to Frederick B. Taylor, 23 May [1945], Federation of Canadian Artists paper, QUA.

89Frederick B. Taylor, “Notes from the Writers’ Artists’ and Broadcasters’ War Council” TS (28 April 1944), 5. Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

90Frederick B. Taylor, “The Arts and Post-War Reconstruction” National Affairs Monthly 11,3 (1945), 78-81.

91Canadian Art was a re-branded Maritime Art moved from its regional location to Ottawa. Abell continued to edit Canadian Art until he left for the United States, after which Ayre took charge of the publication.

92Frederick B. Taylor to Robert Ayre, 2 September 1945, Robert Ayre papers, QUA.

93Frederick B. Taylor to Jack Stewart, 28 March 1950, Frederick B. Taylor papers, NAC.

94Frederick B. Taylor to Lawren Harris, 23 October 1945, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA; Frederick B. Taylor to Mayerovich, Ayre, Wyn Wood, etc., 28 August 1945, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

95Frederick B. Taylor to Elizabeth Wyn Wood, 10 October 1945, Frederick B. Taylor papers, QUA.

96Frederick B. Taylor to Lawren Harris, 31 January 1946, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

97Frederick B. Taylor to Ernst Lindner, 20 February 1946, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

98Rik Kettle to Lawren Harris, 25 October 1945, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

99Rick Kettle to Lawren Harris, 12 November 1945, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA; Rik Kettle to Lawren Harris, 16 November 1945, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

100Lawren Harris to Rik Kettle, 16 November 1945, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

101Calais Calvert to Frederick B. Taylor, 6 October 1945, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

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102Frederick B. Taylor to Rik Kettle, 20 January 1946, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

103Rik Kettle to Lawren Harris, 12 November 1945, Federation of Canadian Artists papers QUA.

104Fred Taylor to Rik Kettle, 20 January 1946, Federation of Canadian Artists papers, QUA.

105Fred Taylor to Robert Ayre, 2 September 1945, Robert Ayre papers QUA.

106Brison, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Canada; see also: Paul Litt, The Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).

107Paul-Émile Borduas, Total Refusal trans. R. Ellenwood (Toronto: Exile Editions, 1985).

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