Pegasus Gallery of Canadian Art on Salt Spring Island has an exciting, official book launch and exhibition of art this coming up weekend and continuing for the month of May.
Fresh from its last showing at Canada's famous MOCCA in Toronto as part of Doug Couplands 'everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything' exhibit, Art for War and Peace: How a Great Public Art Project Helped Canada Discover Itself, an illustrated history of the Sampson-Matthews prints written by Scott Steedman and Ian Sigvaldason, with contributors includingDouglas Coupland, is a historic look at Canada's largest art project.
Spearheaded by some of Canada's greatest artists, including the Group of Seven and their associates, it is a great look at contemporary art from the conception and inception in the early 1940s to the drawn out demise in mid 1960s. This rare collection of large scale oil silkscreens will be on display along with other original supporting artwork of the period, lectures will be given on Friday and Saturday at 4pm about the book and a look at this most impressive body of work. More than six years in the making, with contributions from many dignitaries, and museum curators from across Canada, this book and collection of corresponding art is a rare archive of Canada's push to show our art to every corner of the world, most of all ourselves.
The gallery is open 10am until 5:30pm daily this long weekend and worth a trip to see. This collection will also be travelling to the Military Museum in Calgary AB from September 2015 to January 2016.