Canadian art : Professional art organizations

Canada’s burgeoning art associations reflected the growing number of professional artists and their determined desire to advance and promote Canadian art. The Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour formed in 1925 to promote work in watercolor across the nation. The Maritime Art Association, one of the first regional art societies, was founded in 1935 to represent artists in eastern Canada, and the association began to publish Maritime Art Magazine in 1940. Renamed Canadian Art, it became the country’s first national art magazine in 1943. This magazine was later published in Toronto and in 1967 was reborn as artscanada.

Across Canada, regional artist associations continued to grow. Major art museums were founded in Winnipeg (1912), Hamilton (1914), Edmonton (1924), Vancouver (1926), and Québec City (1933), although only a few Canadian galleries had professional staff and exhibition programs. Universities began to add courses in studio art and art history, and Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, offered Canada’s first bachelor of fine arts degree in 1939. Debates on modern art took place at new French-language art schools in Montréal and Québec, as well as at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Alberta, founded in 1933, and the Emma Lake workshops, which opened in Saskatchewan in 1936. Encarta