Jack Chambers: Light, Spirit, Time, Place and Life

Published to coincide with a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Jack Chambers: Light, Spirit, Time, Place and Life is the first major volume to be published on the work of Jack Chambers, one of Canada's most recognized and broadly influential artists. Featuring a selection of some 100 works including paintings, drawings, prints, and films, and materials from the artist's extensive papers, the book focuses on Chambers's own unique brand of "perceptive realism," his use of light, place, time, and spirit, all of which were central to his work.

A brilliant draughtsman and remarkable painter, Chambers spend his early adulthood travelling and studying in Europe, where he met Pablo Picasso. When he returned to his hometown of London, Ontario, in 1961, he found himself at the centre of a vibrant art scene that would become the backdrop for his films and the surrealist-influenced works based on his dream-like evocations of memory.

This book draws on the large collection of the artist's work held by the AGO. Featuring more than 100 colour reproductions, an extensive chronology, and a complete catalogue of the AGO's collection of Chambers's artworks, the volume also includes critical essays by Sarah Milroy, Christopher Dewdney, Mark Cheetham, Gillian Mackay, Ross Woodman and curator-writer Dennis Reid, as well as unique personal reflections in a variety forms by writers Michael Ondaatje and Susan Crean, and painters John Scott and Eric Fischl.

Dennis Reid is a professor of art history at the University of Toronto, where he has taught since 1977. He also worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario from 1979 until 2010, latterly as director of collections and research, and at the National Gallery of Canada from 1967, principally as curator of Post-Confederation Canadian Art (1971 to 1979). The author of numerous publications on Canadian art, including A Concise History of Canadian Painting (third edition forthcoming), he became a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998.