This beautifully crafted collection showcases Fox’s artworks created over decades from his beloved Venice — the Paradise of Cities. Accompanying an exhibition at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery opening in July 2025, the volume shows the artist’s evolution from painting the heart of Venice to painting views of canals and squares in less familiar parts of the city.

Fox’s watercolours and pencil drawings record a half-century of exploration and observation of the places that fascinated him. He returned to Venice again and again, at least once each year from the mid-1970s until 2008. Venetian colour and light were inspirational sources for all of his painting — abstract and representational images alike — and his approach was explicitly enhanced by the Venetian masters who revolutionized the act of laying paint on the canvas.

John Fox: A Painter in Venice | Un peintre à Venise features over 75 reproductions of his Venetian paintings, drawings, and watercolours, and three essays about Fox’s remarkable career by Victoria LeBlanc, John Leroux, and Sandra Paikowsky that explore his time in the city, his devotion to the authenticity of Venice’s lesser-known neighbourhoods, and his very personal exploration of Venetian art and architecture.

Ce recueil ouvre une perspective fascinante sur le legs visuel de l’artiste canadien John Fox (1927-2008) grâce à un magnifique agencement d’œuvres créées à Venise, ce « paradis des villes », que Fox aura fréquenté pendant des décennies. L’ouvrage accompagne une exposition que présentera le Musée des Beaux-Arts Beaverbrook en 2025. Il montre l’évolution de l’artiste qui, après avoir privilégié le cœur de la ville, a peint des vues de canaux et de places bien moins connus.

Les aquarelles et les carnets de croquis au crayon de l’artiste, nombreux, rendent compte d’un demi-siècle d’exploration et d’observation de lieux qui le captivaient. Fox ira très souvent à Venise, où il séjournera au moins une fois chaque année à partir du milieu des années 1970. Les couleurs et la lumière de la Sérénissime ont inspiré toutes ses toiles, abstraites et figuratives, sa manière étant d’ailleurs manifestement enrichie par la fréquentation de maîtres vénitiens qui ont révolutionné la peinture.

John Fox: Un peintre à Venise regroupe plus de 80 reproductions de peintures, dessins et aquarelles exécutés à Venise, et trois essais de Victoria Leblanc, John Leroux et Sandra Paikowsky, qui sondent la remarquable carrière de cet artiste, ainsi que sa présence dans sa ville de prédilection, son profond attachement pour l’authenticité des quartiers moins connus et son exploration très personnelle de l’art et de l’architecture vénitiens.

Sandra Paikowsky, CM, is an art historian, curator, writer, and Professor Emeritus of Art History at Concordia University. She was a longtime director and curator at the Concordia Art Gallery, co-founder and editor/publisher of the Journal of Canadian Art History, and co-editor of the McGill-Queen's University Press/Beaverbrook series, Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History. In 2015, she received the Order of Canada for her contributions to Canadian art history.

Sandra Paikowsky, CM, est historienne de l’art, conservatrice, autrice et professeure émérite d’histoire de l’art à l’Université Concordia. Longtemps directrice et conservatrice de la galerie d’art de Concordia, elle a cofondé les Annales d’histoire de l’art canadien, dont elle a également été rédactrice et éditrice, et a codirigé la série des Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History, projet conjoint de McGill-Queen's University Press et Beaverbrook. En 2015, elle a été investie de l’Ordre du Canada pour sa contribution à l’histoire de l’art canadien.

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Victoria LeBlanc is an artist, writer, curator and teacher who has contributed to over 40 publications on Canadian artists. She is a former director of the McClure Gallery at Montréal’s Visual Arts Centre and was curator of the Gallery at Victoria Hall in Westmount. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and is the author of two books of poetry.

Artiste, autrice et enseignante, Victoria LeBlanc a participé à la rédaction de plus de 40 ouvrages sur des artistes canadiens. Elle a été directrice de la Galerie McClure, au centre des arts visuels de Montréal, et conservatrice de la Galerie du Victoria Hall, à Westmount. Elle a exposé en solo et en groupe dans tout le Canada, en plus de publier deux recueils de poèmes.

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Architect and art historian John Leroux takes a holistic view of his profession, seeing beyond buildings themselves into the cultural, intellectual and physical landscapes to which they contribute. Born in Fredericton, Leroux graduated from the McGill School of Architecture in 1994 and completed a Masters degree in Canadian Art History at Concordia University in 2002. He has worked at several award-winning architecture firms in Toronto, Atlanta and Fredericton, and also teaches at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design and St. Thomas University. He has won many awards for architectural and public art projects throughout Canada, and has pursued various creative disciplines such as set design for Theatre New Brunswick. A contributing architecture columnist for the Telegraph-Journal and Canadian Architect magazine, he is also the author of three books on New Brunswick architecture: A Fredericton Alphabet, Building Capital: A Guide to Fredericton’s Historic Landmarks, and Building New Brunswick: an architectural history.

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