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The Native Trees of Canada

Leanne Shapton author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Drawn and Quarterly

Published:10th Sep '24

£17.99

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The Native Trees of Canada cover

A new edition of the artist s bold reinterpretation of a century-old book. With a foreword by Sheila Heti, Leanne Shapton s cult art book inspired by a government textbook is back in print with a gorgeous new cover. While shopping in the used-book store the Monkey's Paw in Toronto, Leanne Shapton happened upon a 1956 edition of the stalwart reference book The Native Trees of Canada, originally published in 1917 by the Canadian Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Most people might simply view the book as a dry cataloguing of a banal subject; Shapton, however, saw beauty in the technical details and was inspired to create her own interpretation of The Native Trees of Canada. Shapton distils each image into its simplest form, using vivid colours in lush ink and house paint. She takes the otherwise complex objects of trees, pinecones, and seeds and strips them down into bold, almost abstract shapes and colours: the water birch is represented as two pulsating red bulbs contrasted against a grey backdrop; the eastern white pine is represented by a close-up of its cone against a radiant summer sky. The author of Guest Book; Toys Talking; Sunday Night Movies; Swimming Studies; Was She Pretty? and Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry, Shapton puts forth yet another entirely new facet of her creative artistry.

Leanne Shapton has distinguished herself as a writer (she s also an artist) with an inspiring disdain for genre.' - The Globe and Mail. '[Shapton] is as at home with pictures as she is text, requiring her audience to master a skill she calls 'visual reading'.' - The Guardian

ISBN: 9781770467446

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

104 pages