Event Dates
Time
6:30 pm
Book Launch | Harry Malcolmson: Scene: How the 1960s Transformed Canadian Art
ADMISSION
Free.
Doors open at 6:30 PM | Talk begins at 7:00 PM
Join Paul Kyle Gallery for a special evening with Harry Malcolmson in celebration of his recent publication, Scene: How the 1960s Transformed Canadian Art (UTP Press, 2025). Visiting from Toronto, Malcolmson will speak about one of the most vital and transformative decades in Canadian art, followed by a conversation, audience Q&A, and book signing. Copies of Scene will be available for purchase at the gallery and may be signed following the event.
Critic, collector, and one of the most discerning and historically informed voices in the field, Malcolmson has spent decades thinking, writing, and living at the heart of this country’s cultural life. His presence in Vancouver offers a rare opportunity to hear, in person, someone whose knowledge of Canadian art is not merely scholarly, but deeply lived. In Scene, Malcolmson revisits the 1960s as a decade of rupture, ambition, reinvention, and profound creative change. With wit, intelligence, and firsthand insight, he brings to life the artists, dealers, critics, collectors, and institutions who helped transform Canadian art and widen its horizons.
Harry Malcolmson is an art critic, former lawyer, and prominent collector of art and historical photography. He wrote regularly for publications including the Toronto Telegram, Saturday Night, and Canadian Art. Together with Ann Malcolmson, he assembled the Malcolmson Collection, now held by the Art Gallery of Ontario, a major collection of historical photography that the AGO describes as one of the most important of its kind in Canada. The collection spans 279 photographs by 110 artists, ranging from 1843 to 2011, and has played a significant role in strengthening the AGO’s photography holdings. The Malcolmsons’ collection was first presented publicly at Presentation House Gallery in 2009 and was later the subject of Photography Collected Us at the University of Toronto Art Centre in 2012. In 2022, UBC Library also acquired the Malcolmson Photography Book Collection, comprising nearly 600 items.
