Canadian artist Paul Kane lived in a century when foreign cultures were expanding across North America. Native cultures were encouraged to adopt different world views and alter the way they made a living. Kane—aware that aboriginal cultures were changing—set out to produce a visual record of Native peoples and the land they inhabited before such a record was no longer possible. From 1845 to 1848, Kane journeyed extensively across Canada, taking graphite, watercolour, and oil-on-paper sketches of the peoples he met and their cultural practices.

As Kane worked on the final art, in some cases certain details were changed and compositions altered. With “Near Infrared Reflectography” technique we can “see” Kane struggling with the oil-on-canvas compositions in his studio. The First Brush: Paul Kane and Infrared Reflectography delves into comparisons between painted versions of the same scene and reveals the initial painting and the copy. Beneath the surface of the finished painting lie his initial renderings, his first drawings, and painted efforts that expose his original intentions for the painting. Were they true to the sketch? Did he wrestle with a desire to present in grand fashion, but then resist the temptation?

This book is a unique insight into Paul Kane’s thinking and artistic processes between the years 1849 and 1856 as he painted in his Toronto studio. It explores the issue of truthfulness in Kane’s art and his struggle for composition. Additionally, these comparisons expose Kane’s response to external pressures, as well as his steadfastness to a realized vision.

For the past 100 years, the Royal Ontario Museum has gathered precious objects from around the world to connect its visitors to all corners of the globe. To celebrate our centennial, 21 Canadian writers, artists, scientists—including an astronaut—share their personal connections with 21 extraordinary objects from the Museum’s collections.

Read Joseph Boyden’s observations around the Blackfoot robe and Deepa Mehta’s childhood memories of trying to dance inspired by Shiva Nataraja’s “Dance of Bliss.”  Look at the meteorite that Chris Hadfield suggests is an actual glimpse into Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth.  The book captures moments, thoughts, stories—humorous, nostalgic and oftentimes deeply personal.

The ROM in partnership with The Walrus Foundation, brings you an anthology of Canada’s finest writing.  Combining curatorial expertise and unexpected, intimate perspectives, this writing is accompanied by stunning contemporary photography and striking documentary shots, emphasizing the individual experience with these natural and cultural masterpieces.

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More than 70 artifacts from 50 collections across Canada are featured in this companion volume to the ROM exhibition Canada Collects. Treasures include a Hudson's Bay Company map from 1709, Quebec master carver Louis Jobin's self portrait (Louis, 1867), the original manuscript for L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, Lawren Harris' Mt. Lefroy, a wind tunnel model and landing gear from an Avro Arrow, Bill Reid's Bear, Killerwhale, and Eagle gold box, Inuit artist John Tiktak's Heads Emerging from Stone, and Pierre Trudeau's birchbark canoe. Included as well are international masterpieces in Canadian collections such as Constantin Brancusi's The Kiss.

Seventy Exquisite paperweights, mostly French and American, are showcased in this superbly photographed full-colour catalogue to the ROM exhibition of the same name (April 28, 2007-Winter 2008). Authoritative text by the ROM assistant curator Brian Musselwhite illuminates the history of this miniature art form and it's rich varied expressions in the collections of the Royal Ontario Museum.