Alan Caswell Collier, Relief Stiff
An Artist’s Letters from Depression-Era British Columbia
Seiten
2018
University of British Columbia Press (Verlag)
978-0-7748-3498-8 (ISBN)
University of British Columbia Press (Verlag)
978-0-7748-3498-8 (ISBN)
Aspiring artist Alan Caswell Collier’s letters, sketches, and paintings recall in vivid detail life in Canada’s relief camps and the crisis of youth unemployment during the Great Depression.
Alan Caswell Collier was one of Canada’s most successful landscape painters, but during the Depression he joined the thousands of single, unemployed men who rode the rails or hitchhiked across North America in search of jobs.
He eventually made his way to British Columbia’s remote government-run relief camps, the birthplace of the famous Communist-led On-to-Ottawa Trek. Labouring for twenty cents a day, he detailed camp life and politics in letters to his fiancée and depicted his fellow “relief stiffs” and the BC landscape in character sketches and paintings.
Incisive and candid, his letters reveal a born contrarian with a strong sense of social superiority over his fellow “twenty centers.” Collier resisted the mobilization that led to the Trek, but in the 1940s he became a union activist and an ardent social democrat.
Illustrated with well-known paintings and never-before-published sketches, portraits, and landscapes, Alan Caswell Collier, Relief Stiff offers a fresh perspective on an eminent Ontario artist and on the politics, hopes, and dreams of a generation who came of age at a time of economic upheaval and class conflict.
Alan Caswell Collier was one of Canada’s most successful landscape painters, but during the Depression he joined the thousands of single, unemployed men who rode the rails or hitchhiked across North America in search of jobs.
He eventually made his way to British Columbia’s remote government-run relief camps, the birthplace of the famous Communist-led On-to-Ottawa Trek. Labouring for twenty cents a day, he detailed camp life and politics in letters to his fiancée and depicted his fellow “relief stiffs” and the BC landscape in character sketches and paintings.
Incisive and candid, his letters reveal a born contrarian with a strong sense of social superiority over his fellow “twenty centers.” Collier resisted the mobilization that led to the Trek, but in the 1940s he became a union activist and an ardent social democrat.
Illustrated with well-known paintings and never-before-published sketches, portraits, and landscapes, Alan Caswell Collier, Relief Stiff offers a fresh perspective on an eminent Ontario artist and on the politics, hopes, and dreams of a generation who came of age at a time of economic upheaval and class conflict.
Peter Neary is a historian and the editor and author of several books, including White Tie and Decorations: Sir John and Lady Hope Simpson in Newfoundland, 1934–1936 and On to Civvy Street: Canada’s Rehabilitation Program for Veterans of the Second World War. He is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Western Ontario.
Preface
Principal Persons
Introduction
2231 Blenheim St., Vancouver
Camp 506, Big Bend Road, Near Revelstoke
Camp 376, Tappen
Camp 378, Notch Hill
2231 Blenheim St., Vancouver
Afterwards …
Appendix; Further Reading; Index
Erscheinungsdatum | 26.03.2018 |
---|---|
Zusatzinfo | 89 b&w photos and illustrations |
Verlagsort | Vancouver |
Sprache | englisch |
Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
Gewicht | 680 g |
Themenwelt | Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte |
Literatur ► Briefe / Tagebücher | |
Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Kunstgeschichte / Kunststile | |
Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte | |
ISBN-10 | 0-7748-3498-6 / 0774834986 |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-7748-3498-8 / 9780774834988 |
Zustand | Neuware |
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