Commemorating Canada: History, Heritage, and Memory, 1850s-1990sby Cecilia Morgan Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016$26.95 / 9781442610613 Reviewed by Mike Starr First published October 4, 2017 * Cecilia Morgan’s Commemorating Canada is a good place to start when examining the role of historical commemoration in Canada. The book is part of the Themes in Canadian History…
Read more #177 Monumental tasks
Under Vancouver 1972-1982 by Greg Girard, with interviews by William Gibson and David Campany Toronto: The Magenta Foundation, 2017 $50.00 / 9781926856100 Reviewed by Bill Jeffries * Born in 1955, Greg Girard grew up in Burnaby and started photographing Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in 1972, when he was still in high school. Girard moved to Hong…
Read more #137 Glimpses of pre-Expo Vancouver
Fred Herzog: Modern Color texts by David Campany, Hans-Michael Koetzle, Jeff Wall Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2016 €38.00 / 9783775741811 Reviewed by Bill Jeffries First published May 22, 2017 * Fred Herzog, who is 87 years old in 2017, had to wait until 2011 for a substantial book (Fred Herzog Photographs, Douglas & McIntyre) illustrating…
Read more #128 Fred Herzog’s genius
REVIEW: Lost Vancouver: an Unexpected Art Deco TourAn exhibit at Space Gallery at 552 Clark Drive, Vancouver Reviewed by Michael Kluckner * Between April 11 and April 23 2018, Space Gallery hosts an exhibit, Lost Vancouver: an Unexpected Art Deco Tour. Michael Kluckner, who visited the exhibit for The Ormsby Review, appraises the work of Anne…
Read more #119 Bike ride & Art Deco
Glorious Victorian Homes: 150 Years of Architectural History in British Columbia’s Capital by Nick Russell Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2016 $29.95 / 9781771511865 Reviewed by Larry McCann First published Jan. 16, 2017 * Glorious Victorian Homes is vintage Nick Russell, written with verve, wit, and deep insights about Victoria’s architectural heritage. Well-known and highly regarded for…
Read more #74 Street views before Google
Thomas Fuller: Architect for a Nation by Dorothy Mindenhall [Victoria:] Lakehill Books, 2015 $45.00 / 9780994809513 * Imagining Uplands: John Olmsted’s Masterpiece of Residential Design by Larry McCann [Victoria:] Brighton Press, 2016 $55.00 / 9780995066304 A joint review by Harold Kalman First published Dec. 6, 2016 Two stimulating additions to the literature on the Canadian…
Read more #59 From Civil Gothic to Modern
ESSAY: Putin’s Potemkin village by Marina Sonkina First published October 27, 2016 * Every two years, Russian-born fiction writer Marina Sonkina of Vancouver takes her SFU and UBC students for a field trip to Russia to enhance their appreciation of the literature, art and cultural history they have been studying — and it keeps getting…
Read more #53 Marina Sonkina’s Russia
by Michael Sasges ESSAY: For Remembrance Day 2016, Michael Sasges has reconstructed the life of Nicola Valley rancher John Foster Paton Nash. First published Nov. 7, 2016 * Introduction. There are three memorials for Nash–at his school in England; in the English village where he lived briefly with his wife; and at his home in…
Read more #39 From Quilchena Creek to Flanders