“The author was in fact setting out to research the forgotten iconic photographer, H. Walter Barnett. She visited the Victoria & Albert Museum in London where she came across this particularly intriguing photograph of Bernhardt taken by Barnett when Bernhardt was much older, and her career had by then already spanned over fifty years.” Valerie Green reviews Unequivocal Magic: Sarah Bernhardt and the Journey of a Portrait, by Alex Bertram (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2026) $42.99 / 9781771127189
A novel’s pensive narrator, a museum curator smitten with the realms of art history and ideas, recalls her childhood, marriage, and quest for personal alchemical gold. A slim book with many literal questions and much philosophizing, it left our reviewer wanting less as well as more. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews The Alchemy of Paradise, by Susannah M. Smith (Halifax: Invisible Publishing, 2026) $24.95 / 9781778430855
“In BC, cartoonists like Len Norris, Roy Peterson, Bob Krieger, Dan Murphy, Raeside, and (more lately) Pia Guerra have demonstrated what a sharp wit can do with a sharp pencil. Nurtured for decades by daily spots on the local newspaper’s editorial/opinion page, these giants of jest created lasting and recognizable characters, styles, voices, values, and understandings of who we are.” John Belshaw reviews The Canada Handbook, by Adrian Raeside (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2025) $22.95 / 9781550179538
“At times, the novel feels—and this is praise—like a couple of opinionated art students kvetching while wearing designer clothes—or latex—in Geneva.” —Jessica Poon reviews Bold Strokes, by Jane Boon (Toronto: Regan Arts, 2024) $22.00 / 9781682452288
Rebel Muse: My Life With Peter Paul Ochs by Monika Ullmann Victoria: ProWord Publishing, 2018 $25.00 / 9780992144937 Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published October 12, 2018 * Editor’s note: In an email to the Ormsby Review, freelance writer and journalist Monika Ullmann recalled that when the new Provincial Museum of British Columbia (now the Royal… Read more #397 B.C. sculptor lost and found
Alan Caswell Collier, Relief Stiff: An Artist’s Letters from Depression-era British Columbia by Peter Neary (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $45.00 / 9780774834988 Reviewed by Daniel Francis First published May 8, 2018 * Most British Columbians live within an easy drive of one of the unemployment relief camps established by the federal government during the… Read more #302 Middle class artist on relief
A Legacy of Canadian Art, from Kelowna Collections by Roger H. Boulet Kelowna: The Kelowna Art Gallery, 2017 $15.00 / 9781896749860 Reviewed by Maria Tippett First posted April 23, 2018 * Drawn from eight private collections in Kelowna as well as from the permanent collection of the Kelowna Art Gallery, A Legacy of Canadian Art, from… Read more #292 Hidden gems in Kelowna
First published November 10, 2017 Emily Carr As I Knew Her by Carol Pearson, with a foreword by Robert Amos. Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2016. $19.95 / 9781771511742 Reviewed by Kerry Mason * Our understanding of the internationally significant artist and author, Emily Carr, is enriched by this overdue reprint of Carol Pearson’s Emily Carr As… Read more #200 Emily’s compartmentalized friend
The Seriousness Of Play: Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas by Nicola Levell London: Black Dog Publishing, 2016 £19.95 (U.K.) / 9781910433119 Reviewed by Eldon Yellowhorn First published October 14, 2017 * Play, playful, and playfulness best describe the visual jazz that Nicola Levell presents in her portrait of Michael Nicoll and the Yahgulanaas experience. After a short preface… Read more #181 Mousewoman meets Spandex
Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America by Paul Kane, edited and with an introduction by Kenneth Lister Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum Press, 2016 $39.99 / 9780888545077 Reviewed by Grant Keddie First published October 3, 2017 * Between November 1846 and November 1847, the Irish-Canadian artist Paul Kane (1810-1871) visited the Columbia… Read more #175 Artist among the Songhees
REVIEW: Florence, Dante and Me by Robert Stuart Thomson Godwin Books 2017 9780995876002 Reviewed by Beverly Cramp First published September 18, 2017 * It’s the summer of 1960 and a young UBC student is about to leave Vancouver, then still very much a White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant city. Twenty-year old Robert Thomson had won a scholarship to spend… Read more #171 Florence, Dante and Me
Entering Time: The Fungus Man Platters of Charles Edenshaw by Colin Browne Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2016 $19.95 / 9781772010398 Reviewed by Alan L. Hoover First published September 8, 2017 * Charles Edenshaw (c. 1867-1920) is perhaps the most recognized and acclaimed Northwest Coast Indigenous artist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An outstanding feature… Read more #166 Three platters of Charles Edenshaw
Light Within the Shadows: A Painter’s Memoir by Pnina Granirer Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2017 $24.95 / 9781926997849 Reviewed by Janet Mary Nicol First published June 29, 2017 * Pnina Granirer was creative from an early age, but she didn’t come in to her own artistically until the “third act” of her life journey. This… Read more #145 Pnina’s three lives
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
2050: A Post-Apocalyptic Murder Mystery by Michael Kluckner Vancouver: Midtown Press, 2016 $19.95 / 9781988242187 Reviewed by Mark James Dunn First published May 30, 2017 * Vancouver historian, artist and illustrator Michael Kluckner has turned his eclectic talents in recent years to graphic novels, starting in 2015 with Toshiko, a remaking of Romeo and Juliet… Read more #132 The demise of Vancouver
The Art of Jeffrey Rubinoffby James Fox (editor) Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2016$36.95 / 9781771621298 Reviewed by Catherine Nutting First published May 22, 2017 * The Art of Jeffrey Rubinoff concerns Rubinoff’s sculpture, the park on Hornby Island he shaped as a permanent sculptural exhibit and his conviction that the process of art-making amounts… Read more #129 Hornby haven for herd of steel
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
Ellen Neel: The First Woman Totem Pole CarverAn exhibit at Legacy Gallery, Victoria, BC Reviewed by Megan A. Smetzer First published April 11, 2017 * Between January 14 and 1 April 2017, the University of Victoria’s Legacy Art Gallery hosted an exhibit, Ellen Neel: The First Woman Totem Pole Carver, curated by Carolyn Butler-Palmer of… Read more #117 The belated legacy of Ka’kasolas
Exhibiting Nation: Multicultural Nationalism (And Its Limits) in Canada’s Museumsby Caitlin Gordon-Walker Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016$32.95 / 9780774831642 Reviewed by Mike Starr First published April 2, 2017 * In Exhibiting Nation, Caitlin Gordon-Walker explores the ways in which Canadian multicultural nationalism has influenced exhibits at three of the country’s major museums. Gordon-Walker suggests that multicultural… Read more #112 When good isn’t good enough
