Halifax Harbour 1918 / Le port d'Halifax 1918 by Anabelle Kienle Ponka
with contributions from Lily Foster, Sarah Fillmore, Kirsten Appleyard
4to. pp. 124. English & French text. profusely illustrated, some folding. bibliography. paperback. [Fredericton]: Goose Lane Editions in association with the National Gallery of Canada, [2018].
New.
ISBN-10: 1773100874/ ISBN-13: 9781773100876
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Two wartime artists, one bustling harbour, and a city ravaged by the Halifax Explosion. Two perspectives on Halifax one year after the Explosion.
A year after the city was devastated by the Halifax Explosion Harold Gilman (British, 1876–1919) and Arthur Lismer (Canadian, 1885–1969) were working in Halifax as war artists. Both commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Fund to record the war activity on the home front, the two men struck up a friendship and worked side-by-side on occasion.
Gilman seemed to wipe clean the desolation of the Explosion, ignoring the site of a human-made catastrophe in favour of a glowing landscape. In contrast, Lismer, a member of the Group of Seven, recorded the port’s activity up close, producing a series of drawings and paintings of camouflaged battleships embedded in the Maritime landscape.
With more than 30 reproductions and essays by Anabelle Kienle Poňka, Lily Foster, and Sarah Fillmore, Halifax Harbour 1918 traces the artists’ meticulous approach to their mission and their role during a critical moment in the history of Canadian landscape painting