The Sampson Matthews print program was the largest public art project in Canadian history.

Launched at the start of the Second World War, it lasted 22 years and cost tens of millions of dollars in today’s currency. At its height, it employed many of the country’s best commercial printers, designers and artists, working full-time to create masterpieces of serigraphy – exquisite oversize silkscreen prints from a who’s who of Canadian leading contemporary artists, including David Milne, Charles Comfort, Emily Carr, B.C. Binning, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson and four other painters from the Group of Seven, plus earlier masterworks from Tom Thompson, J.W. Morrice, and Clarence Gagnon.

For three decades, these evocative silkscreens hung in schools, libraries, banks, government offices, insurance companies, and dentists’ waiting rooms from Whitehorse to Newfoundland, and in embassies, consulates, and mess halls around the world.”

From ‘ART FOR WAR AND PEACE’, by Ian Sigvaldason and Scott Steedman

Date: October 23 - April 10

Location: Cowichan Public Art Gallery​​