When Canadians hear the name Arthur Lismer, they immediately think of the painter and member of the original Group of Seven. Angela Grigor’s new book, Arthur Lismer, Visionary Art Educator is certainly going to change that perception. Grigor makes the very convincing case that Arthur Lismer was not only a member of the Group of Seven, who gave Canadian landscape painting a national identity, but he was also a resolute proponent of art education. Moreover, in his time, he defined himself and was identified by his influence on art education in Canada and around the world more than by his influence on painting. Although he was one of the most prominent art educators in Canada, his contribution has been largely ignored. This highly readable and insightful book should change not only the marginalization of the role that Lismer played as an advocate for art education, but also the marginalization of art education. Grigor builds a portrait of a man of boundless energy, who saw art as a universal form of expression, profoundly rewarding for all who took the time to enjoy it.

The book is an exhaustive look at Arthur Lismer’s immense contribution to Canada as an influential and dedicated art educator. Grigor has divided her book into two sections:  a chronological overview of Lismer’s life as an artist and educator, entitled “A Life in Art,” and then a more detailed explanation of the foundation of his ideas in education. In the first section, Lismer’s life is portrayed through narrative and extensive quotations from his writings and letters and interviews with people who knew, studied, and taught with him. The Arthur Lismer that Grigor documents was a gregarious, outgoing individual, whose passion was evident in his teaching, lecturing, and willingness to fight against established institutions to forward his vision. His philosophy on life and art saw art as the integrating influence that was essential for all people of all ages. In 1916 he began his lifelong career in teaching, as principal of Victoria School of Art and Design in Halifax. This is especially ironic as the current Nova Scotia College of Art is phasing art education out of their program of studies. Perhaps this book should be mandatory reading for their Board of Directors.

After World War I, Lismer returned to Toronto, where he was appointed vice-principal of the Ontario College of Art and the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario); here he began a distinguished career in innovative gallery programs. After a hiatus in the United States at Teacher’s College, Columbia, Lismer returned to Canada to spend one year at the National Gallery in Ottawa and then ended his career in Montreal, where he retired as principal of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1967. Early retirement was not Lismer’s priority; his work continued for as long as he felt he was fit to contribute. 

Committed to the idea that every child could be invigorated by art, Lismer worked tirelessly to provide accessible art instruction to youngsters. Convinced also that the creative energy of the child can never be wholly lost, he encouraged adults to start classes as well, and succeeded at bringing all ages together in the classroom. Education for Lismer was not confined to schooling and although he worked extensively with teachers, his own teaching of children and adults was mostly under the auspices of galleries and museums. Lismer was invited to lecture across Canada, in England, France, the United States, Australia, South Africa, Hawaii, the Fiji Islands, and New Zealand. It was during these encounters with other art educators that Lismer solidified and extended his own thinking on the importance on art education.

In the second section of the book, Grigor details how the humanist, democratic education that Lismer espoused was built from his understandings gained as a painter with the Group of Seven, the discussions about a Canadian National identity in art, the influence on Lismer of several prominent progressive American, British, and European thinkers, and his experience in Canada and abroad. It was in putting these ideas into practice that Lismer developed his own, profoundly revolutionary, ideas of art education. He had little use for the established art and educational institutions that in his vision stifled a democratic, creative education in art for all. How different the National Gallery Education programs might look if Lismer had been encouraged in the directions he was developing in 1939.

This book should be required reading for anyone involved in the arts and education in Canada. Through Lismer’s life and work, we all can gain a greater understanding of the social and political forces at work that marginalize art education even today.  My only criticisms are minor. Several times Grigor assumes a readership that would understand the significance of prominent art educators of the early part of the twentieth century such as Marion Richardson or Charles Dudley Gaitskell and so does not contextualize enough the importance of their work in shaping Lismer’s philosophy. 

Arthur Lismer, Visionary Art Educator was published twenty years after Grigor’s M.A. thesis on Lismer was finished at Concordia University. Although it took that amount of time to turn that early research into the book we have today, the wait was worth it. It is no wonder that it was awarded the Founders’ Prize by the Canadian History of Education Association for the “Best English-language book published on the History of Education in Canada between 2000 and 2002.”

Kit Grauer
University of British Columbia