Long retired from law, art journalism, and the collection of painting, sculpture, and photography, Harry Malcolmson feels an obligation to Canadian artists of the 1960s, a period when patriotism reached an apex with Expo 67. It was a time of economic prosperity and new-found freedom from Anglo-Saxon puritanism and established religion.
Toronto, where Malcolmson lives, had taken to the arts to demonstrate its modernism, helped in a significant degree by Jewish dealers and gallerists. Between 1950 and 1960, there were only two private galleries, the Laing and the Roberts, but by the mid-’60s, eight were in operation. The British bias in painting and sculpture was losing some force, and even the Group of Seven was becoming passé to many contemporary artists and critics. The gallerist David Mirvish, the painter Jack Bush, and the critic Clement Greenberg further accelerated change by promoting leading contemporary New York artists. Malcolmson — who began writing about...
Keith Garebian has published thirty books and five chapbooks, including the poetry collections Three-Way Renegade and, most recently, Stay. He is featured in the third volume of Laurence Hutchman’s In the Writers’ Words.
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