Jock Macdonald

Scottish-born artist Jock Macdonald initially moved to Canada to take up a lecturing position at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts, and went on to become a key, formative figure in the Painters Eleven, a group of painters who vigorously promoted abstract painting across Canada. Released to coincide with an ambitious new retrospective exhibition organised by the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery and the Vancouver Art Gallery, Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form includes contributions by academics and writers including Anna Hudson, Assistant Professor in Canadian Art and Curatorial Studies at York University, Michelle Jacques, Chief Curator at Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Linda Jansma, Senior Curator at The Robert Mclaughlin Gallery, Oshawa and Ian Thom, Senior Curator at Vancouver Art Gallery. Previous publications dedicated to Macdonald's work have not analyzed the artist's use of colour which, as an abstractionist and later a borderline Surrealist, was arguably the most significant part of his practice. In this lavishly illustrated book colour reproductions of Macdonald's works can be seen alongside the writings of leading experts in the field of Canadian art history.

In 1953 eleven Canadian Abstract Expressionist artists banded together to break through the barricades of traditional art at a time when landscapes were about the only paintings collectors were buying. Hungry for recognition, raging against the art establishment that was shutting them out, they decided to form a collective, expecting they would gain more attention as a group than as solo artists. In 1954, The Painters Eleven--Jack Bush, Oscar Cahén, Hortense Gordon, Tom Hodgson, Alexandra Luke, Jock Macdonald, Ray Mead, Kazuo Nakamura, William Ronald, Harold Town and Walter Yarwood--held their first exhibition in Toronto. Initially the public response echoed the worldwide sentiments toward Abstract Expressionism --mockery and bewilderment. Nevertheless, the exhibition attracted wide public interest and criticism faded into acclaim from critics and collectors alike. A successful 1956 exhibition at the Riverside Gallery in New York even elicited praise from the influential critic Clement Greenberg. Packed with gorgeous full color reproductions, this highly detailed account reveals the influences of the indivudual artists on the group's dynamic art and uncovers why the Painters Eleven had such a struggle for recognition, and why they acheived it so masterfully.

At 10am on the 3rd of May, 2013, Paul walked into the therapy room. The sense of fear was immediate and palpable. He was shaking, hadn’t slept meaningfully for weeks, was barely able to function and in unbearable psychological and physical pain. However, this story of everything that had led up to this moment and what happened next, is being told from the other end of the therapist’s couch. A first-person account of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the life that led to it, and the challenges faced together by Paul his daughter Natasha during the fight back. With nothing held back, this is an intimate and up-close look at how childhood abuse, trauma led to a spiral of self-destruction until the reunion of father and daughter starts a journey on the long, hard road back to health. This isn’t a story of recovery or cure. This is learning to adapt and overcome from severe psychological injury and to accept that the struggle continues. It is written for all those who never stood a chance, all those without a voice who are still hidden behind the veil of silence, and all those held mute by the stigma of abuse, trauma and mental illness that pervades our society.

From a beloved master of crime fiction, The Deep Blue Good-by is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat. Travis McGee is a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He’s also a knight-errant who’s wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out, and his rule is simple: He’ll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half. “John D. MacDonald was the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”—Stephen King McGee isn’t particularly strapped for cash, but how can anyone say no to Cathy, a sweet backwoods girl who’s been tortured repeatedly by her manipulative ex-boyfriend Junior Allen? What Travis isn’t anticipating is just how many women Junior has torn apart and left in his wake. Enter Junior’s latest victim, Lois Atkinson. Frail and broken, Lois can barely get out of bed when Travis finds her, let alone keep herself alive. But Travis turns into Mother McGee, giving Lois new life as he looks for the ruthless man who steals women’s spirits and livelihoods. But he can’t guess how violent his quest is soon to become. He’ll learn the hard way that there must be casualties in this game of cat and mouse. Features a new Introduction by Lee Child

Academy Award-winning filmmaker and former private detective Errol Morris examines the nature of evidence and proof in the infamous Jeffrey MacDonald murder case Early on the morning of February 17, 1970, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Jeffrey MacDonald, a Green Beret doctor, called the police for help. When the officers arrived at his home they found the bloody and battered bodies of MacDonald’s pregnant wife and two young daughters. The word “pig” was written in blood on the headboard in the master bedroom. As MacDonald was being loaded into the ambulance, he accused a band of drug-crazed hippies of the crime. So began one of the most notorious and mysterious murder cases of the twentieth century. Jeffrey MacDonald was finally convicted in 1979 and remains in prison today. Since then a number of bestselling books—including Joe McGinniss’s Fatal Vision and Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer—and a blockbuster television miniseries have told their versions of the MacDonald case and what it all means. Errol Morris has been investigating the MacDonald case for over twenty years. A Wilderness of Error is the culmination of his efforts. It is a shocking book, because it shows us that almost everything we have been told about the case is deeply unreliable, and crucial elements of the case against MacDonald simply are not true. It is a masterful reinvention of the true-crime thriller, a book that pierces the haze of myth surrounding these murders with the sort of brilliant light that can only be produced by years of dogged and careful investigation and hard, lucid thinking. By this book’s end, we know several things: that there are two very different narratives we can create about what happened at 544 Castle Drive, and that the one that led to the conviction and imprisonment for life of this man for butchering his wife and two young daughters is almost certainly wrong. Along the way Morris poses bracing questions about the nature of proof, criminal justice, and the media, showing us how MacDonald has been condemned, not only to prison, but to the stories that have been created around him. In this profoundly original meditation on truth and justice, Errol Morris reopens one of America’s most famous cases and forces us to confront the unimaginable. Morris has spent his career unsettling our complacent assumptions that we know what we’re looking at, that the stories we tell ourselves are true. This book is his finest and most important achievement to date.

The complete collection of puppets featured in Geoffrey Farmer's The Surgeon and the Photographer. Canadian artist Geoffrey Farmer creates the puppet figures from collage and assemblage traditions.