The ROM publishes and co-publishes a wide variety of books relating to the Museum, its collections and research. Subject areas include Canadian heritage, world art and archaeology, natural history, palaeobiology, and earth science. ROM books are distributed by University of Toronto Press, except where otherwise noted, and are available in bookstores, online and in the ROM Boutique.
ROM Books
Featured Publications
The First Brush: Paul Kane and Infrared Reflectography
ROM
2014
8.5" x 10.5"
80 pages
Soft Cover
$24.95
978-088854-498-8
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.
ROM Field Guide to Butterflies of Ontario
ROM
2014
4.5" x 8"
488 pages
Soft Cover
$29.99
978-0-88854-497-1
This is the very first field guide on the butterflies of Ontario. It highlights the diversity of life by featuring a staggering 167 species of butterflies known to occur in Ontario. The ROM Field Guide to Butterflies of Ontario includes descriptive species accounts, flight season phenograms, and striking field photography of adults and caterpillars. Using range maps based on hundreds of thousands of historical records, and what we believe to be a first for a field guide: computer-modelled predictive distributions, this book illuminates the complete life history of these butterflies. The field guide’s easy-to-access approach, comprehensive coverage, and beautiful design make it an essential guide for both amateur naturalists and professional lepidopterists.
Every Object Has a Story
ROM
2014
9.75 x 11.25 inches
188 pages
Hard Cover
$29.95
978-1-77089-486-0
eBook
$14.99
978-1-77089-487-7
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.
Available in the iTunes Store.
Paul Kane /The Artist/ : Wilderness to Studio
ROM
2011
12.5"x11"
416 pages
Cloth
$75.00
978-0-88854-480-3
Destined to be one of the most important books published in Canada, this coffee table volume includes the complete ROM collection of 100 oil paintings and 373 sketches, the world's largest Paul Kane collection. Kane's evocative sketches and paintings of Native peoples, customs, and artifacts, have become a treasured part of Canada's heritage.
Embellished Reality: Indian Painted Photographs
ROM
2012
9"x12"
120 pages
Hard Cover
$29.99
978-0-88854-481-0
The art of painted photographs arose out of a need for 19th-century artists to compete with commercial photography. The ROM has the largest representation of Indian painted photographs in North America. Embellished Reality features 50 works never before exhibited. Unlike the West, where photography replaced painting as an accurate reflection of "reality," in India, photographs were used to enhance the function of paintings, which were seen as a reflection of a higher realm of existence, or "hyper-reality."
Burton & Isabelle Pipistrelle: Out of the Bat Cave
ROM
2011
9"x10"
32 pages
Hard Cover
$19.99
978-0-88854-485-8
Burton & Isabelle Pipistrelle is an imaginative children's book telling the nocturnal adventure of a small Pipistrelle bat named Burton, and his sister Isabelle. The book follows Burton as he ventures out of the Bat Cave and discovers the galleries of the museum. Burton loses his way in all the excitement and has to rely on his superpower-echolocation-to help him get home.
Bollywood Cinema Showcards: Indian Film Art from the 1950s to the 1980s
ROM
2011
9"x12"
120 pages
Hard Cover
$29.99
978-0-88854-482-7
Join us on a visual journey through the world of Bollywood Cinema, as we trace the aesthetic and thematic evolution of a film industry that has captivated audiences around the world, becoming the world's largest film producer. The ROM's vintage Bollywood Cinema showcards feature Bollywood icons and award-winning films spanning 40 years of the film industry. Bollywood Cinema Showcards features 90 artifacts from the Bollywood industry, embodying the fanciful and fantastical style of India's cinema culture that has a growing fascination in the West, and a deep cultural tradition in the East.
On the High Road: The History of Godin Tepe, Iran
ROM
2011
7.5"x10.5"
400 pages
Hard Cover
$59.99
978-0-88854-474-2
Written to a general-interest audience, On the High Road explores the 4,000-year history of the village of Godin Tepe, on the fabled Silk Road, situated at an intersection of cultures. The authors weave a narrative of the remarkable history of this site in western Iran while explaining how archaeological remains are used to reconstruct the past.