David Milne

This comprehensive survey of the life and work of the Canadian artist David Milne (1882-1953) accompanies the first UK exhibition of Milne's work at Dulwich Picture Gallery and brings together one hundred and twenty of his most significant works in oil, watercolour and dry-point printmaking. Like the members of the Group of Seven, Milne primarily chose landscape as his subject matter. However, his true subject was the process of perception and representation, reducing his painting to its essentials and infusing it with his own distinctive modern sensibility. Through the use of photographs, archival material and Milne's own writings the book presents a moving account of one man's spiritual and emotional voyage into modernity - from his early life in small town Ontario, to the bustling sidewalks of New York, on to the war torn landscapes of northern France as an official war artist and back again to the woods, lakes and fields of upstate New York. Pivoting as it does on Milne's war art, which includes some of the most formally daring of his career, the publication will serve as a poignant locus of remembrance, underscoring the historic bond between Canada and Great Britain, and offering a unique perspective on history through the eyes of one of Canada's most sophisticated modern painters.