Edna Taçon / [edited by] Renée van der Avoird.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Van der Avoird, Renée, editor, contributor, curator.

Art Gallery of Ontario, host institution, publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Taçon, Edna, 1905-1980--Exhibitions.

Taçon, Edna.

Painting, Abstract--Canada--20th century--Exhibitions.

Painting, Abstract.

Genre:

exhibition catalogs.

Exhibition catalogs.

Physical Description:

105 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) , portraits, facsimiles ; 24 x 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Toronto, Ontario : Art Gallery of Ontario ; Fredericton, New Brunswick : Goose Lane Editions, [2025]

Summary:

"Edna Taçon (1905-1980) became a prominent figure in the Toronto art world in the 1940s, where she had a crucial impact on the development of abstract painting. Described as "Canada's leading proponent of non-objective art," she split her time between Toronto and New York, where her practice was in step with leading avant-garde artists. Edna Taçon: Verve and Decorum is both a concise exhibition and a richly-coloured catalogue of Tacon's rarely seen oil paintings, watercolours, and paper collages, along with archival sketches, correspondence and photographs of the artist. The volume will include two curatorial essays, with research gleaned from newly uncovered archival sources and interviews with the artist's family members. Verve and Decorum focuses specifically on Taçon's works from the 1940s, which despite their early success, are little known today. The paintings are characterized by floating compositions, flowing lines and luminous forms rendered through loose blending of colours. A trained violinist, Taçon considered music and abstraction as similarly intuitive, and once described her work as an arena in which "verve and decorum" collide, and where "unexpected devices of design dash into a bright rhythm.""-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Directors foreword

Curator's acknowledgements

Verve and decorum : the non-objective art of Edna Taçon / Renée van der Avoird

Grand-mère : an interview / Carl Taçon & Renée van der Avoird

Works exhibited

Additional illustrations & archival materials.

Notes:

Catalogue of the exhibition "Edna Taçon: Verve and Decorum," held at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Feb. 28 - Aug. 30, 2026.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9781773104553

1773104551

OCLC:

1512965541