Sculpture in Canada: A History by Maria Tippett (review)

Humans live in a three-dimensional world that has been shaped by many forces over time. Even our own bodies reveal a shaping process unique to the way we use ourselves. When art comes off the wall and stands beside us in the form of sculpture we relate in an embodied way to its shape, mass, and surface. All this makes sculpture a powerful art form as well as one that poses logistical difficulties to its maker.

In this book, Maria Tippett focuses on sculpture making in Canada. It is an astounding survey in terms of the scale of the time frame and the geographical space covered. The earliest sculpture she considers was made more than fifteen thousand years BCE while the most recent items discussed were made in the current decade and include postmodernist works and installations. The objects considered range in size from something that would fit into a child's hand all the way to pieces several metres in size, land art, and groupings of large numbers of totem poles or inuksuit.

The book is organised chronologically beginning with objects made by the earliest human inhabitants of what is now called Canada. It is also organised on inclusive principles so the art of Northwest Coast First Nations and of Inuit peoples is considered alongside the developing stories of sculpture made by immigrants from Europe. Tippett documents varied reasons for making sculpture as well as varied social requirements for it–factors which could be as influential as the materials and methods available to the sculptor. She points out that just as the earliest items shown 'were made for utilitarian, shamanistic or decorative purposes' (p. 14), and the magnificent carvings of nineteenth-century Northwest Coast First Nations peoples 'gave a visual confirmation of the spiritual and social order of the community' (p. 30) so also the many memorials and statues subsequently erected across the provinces of Canada proclaimed power as well as commemorating the lives of the new immigrants, or their losses in times of war, or expressing liturgical purposes. As she shows, many of these meanings were and still are contested. Accordingly, this history of sculpture making in Canada not only documents changing artistic genres but also illuminates the history (and prehistory) of Canada itself.

Tippett's stated aims for the book are threefold: 'to explore the historical circumstances in which sculpture has been made in Canada'; 'to assess its reception by galleries, critics and the wider public'; and 'above all to introduce Canadians and non-Canadians to the under-represented wealth of what has been achieved here' (p. 9). In this comprehensive and thoroughly-researched work Tippett achieves these aims and more. The book is beautifully illustrated and produced and has an excellent apparatus of notes, index, and information on the dimensions, materials, and locations of the sculptures shown. It will be the standard reference work for years to come for students of sculpture and of Canada.