In 1951, Samuel Bronfman (1898-1971), head of the House of Seagram, commissioned 22 Canadian Artists, including A.Y. Jackson, Robert Pilot, Joseph Casson, Albert Cloutier and Jacques Tonnancour to paint a range of cities within Canada. A legendary “captain of industry”, Bronfman rejected the stereotypical view of Canada that dominates even today — that of a vast, idyllic and untamed wilderness. He also felt that private enterprise should do its share to sell its country as well as its products on the world market. For this reason, Bronfman commissioned 90 paintings of Canadian urban centres and displayed a selection of them throughout the Americas and Europe in 1953-54. The exhibition — and its four-ton, custom-built display unit — travelled almost 50,000 kilometres, beginning in San Juan and continuing to Havana, Mexico City, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, London, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Stockholm, the Hague, Madrid, and ending with a visit to the Canadian Armed Forces in Loest, West Germany. This was followed by a cross-Canada tour in 1954-55.

An assortment of young artists and their established peers participated in the ambitious Seagram project. Expert guidance in the selection process came from Robert Pilot and A.Y. Jackson, both of whom played important roles in the formation of the modern, national school of painting in the first half of the 20th century. Other participants who are now recognizable names in the history of Canadian art include Goodridge Roberts, Frederick B. Taylor and Albert Cloutier.

A new Canadian identity was emerging in the 1950s, and the paintings in Cities of Canada reflect this shifting character as clearly as the 1951 census. The population tripled in the first half of the 20th century, and almost 57 percent of Canadians were now located in urban environments. By this time Canada truly was a nation of city-dwellers, regardless of the rugged wilderness stereotype, and Bronfman meant to get this message across to the world — in his words, “to establish abroad a familiarity with our urban life.”

Produced and travelled by the McCord Museum, Montréal, Québec the exhibition is made possible through the generosity of The Seagram Company Ltd.