Beginning with the origins of the graphic arts industry in Britain, Angela Davis describes the development of technology, commercial organization, and professionalization of artists in Canada. She focuses on the artists involved in the creation and reproduction of a "popular" art form. The evolution of commercial illustration and the graphic arts industry, Davis asserts, had a dramatic impact not only on the popular press and advertising but also on illustrators, engravers, photo-engravers, and lithographers, who still considered themselves to be artists but found that they were now working in an industrial atmosphere similar to that of other workers. Art and Work reveals that the foundations of Canadian art and popular culture rest not only on the European traditions of "fine" art but also on the commercial art produced in the early graphic arts houses.

Angela E. Davis' profile page

"Well argued, well researched, and well written, Art and Work adds to the growing corpus of work that looks at art as a social product, an important medium of communication, and an agent of consciousness-forming." Brian Osborne, Department of Geography, Queen's University.