“The art of making artists”: Canadian Modernism, F.R. Scott, and the New Deal

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
“The art of making artists”: Canadian Modernism, F.R. Scott, and the New Deal
Abstract
The author notes that Federal One, the American New Deal program that funded artists during the Great Depression, provided a complicated model for Canadian writers, who recognized that the framework presented both substantial benefits and real dangers to the artist in need of work. The author believes that a reconsideration of Canadian modernism with New Deal tensions in mind demonstrates that Canadian artists were acutely aware of the inevitable ideological conflict that surfaces when artists must attempt to satisfy an impossible balance between personal artistic and political commitments and government-imposed regulations. She notes that the work of Montreal poet F.R. Scott (1899-1985), in particular, highlights the ambiguities of the New Deal proposal. Her reading of Scott in relation to the New Deal provides the author with fresh insight on both the artistic concerns of the time and the multiple influences that would come to shape Canada’s commitment to government sponsored art.
Publication
Canadian Literature : A Quarterly of Criticism and Review
Volume
No. 209
Pages
31-46
Date
Summer 2011
Language
en
Citation
Kelly, Erica. “‘The Art of Making Artists’: Canadian Modernism, F.R. Scott, and the New Deal.” Canadian Literature : A Quarterly of Criticism and Review No. 209 (Summer 2011): 31–46.
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