Prairie Abstraction: Selections from the Collection

Intellectual, vibrant, pensive, and intuitive: these adjectives describe the paintings, prints, and sculpture which comprise the exhibition Prairie Abstraction: Selections from the Collection. The exhibition documents what art historian Russell Harper has termed “the modernist wave” which swept Canada’s three prairie provinces during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Prairie Abstraction incorporates the art of several well-known artists, including Kenneth Lochhead, Ronald Bloore, Roy Kiyooka, and Ted Goodwin. Together, these and other western painters helped to expand the definition of art in Canada, and caught the attention and praise of art circles as far away as New York.