MICHAEL SNOW (1920-2023)

Michael Snow was a legendary Canadian artist whose highly acclaimed and influential practice spanned all media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, films, books, holograms, projections, installations, musical recordings, performances and essays. His best-known films are Wavelength (1967) and La Région Centrale (1971), with the former regarded as a milestone in avant-garde cinema.

He studied design at the Ontario College of Art (OCA, now OCAD University), and his training as a painter can be credited to the Bauhaus model of interdisciplinary foundations, a curriculum supplemented by the advice and mentorship of John Martin, a design teacher and recognized watercolourist.¹

In her book, Michael Snow: Life & Work, author Martha Langford writes that, “in concert with the development of a unique culture and a national identity, Snow enables the creative impetus among Canadians to rethink art in relations to process, technology and everyday experience.”

Among his most famous works is the Walking Woman, a silhouette of a modern woman, first introduced in 1962. Over the course of five years, he would re-imagine her in paintings, drawings and flattened sculptures. In 1967, he produced an 11-part sculpture based on the Walking Woman for the Ontario Pavilion at Expo 67.²

Other recognizable works include Flight Stop, a permanent installation at the Toronto Cadillac Fairview Eaton Centre, and The Audience, an iconic public sculpture of gold-painted figures installed on the northeast and northwest sides of the Rogers Centre.

Learn more about Michael Snow

Michael Snow, National Gallery of Canada

Remembering artist Michael Show, OCAD University, 2019

¹ Michael Snow, Biography, Life & Work by Martha Langford, Art Canada Institute

²My Canada, 46/150: The everywhere art of Michael Snow, posted by Kelley Teahen, March 18, 2017.

Image credit: The Audience by Michael Snow.