Michael Audain

Ask Haida artist and hereditary chief 7IDANsuu James Hart how long it took him to master the art of carving, and he’ll tell you: “Around ten thousand years.” Hart has achieved national prominence and international acclaim for his towering poles, stately cedar sculptures, and massive bronzes—monumental works that extend the long continuum of Haida visual traditions into powerful new forms. Since his early days assisting Robert Davidson and Bill Reid, through his reproductions of historical Haida poles and his carving of original house front, story, and memorial poles for private commissions and clan-based contexts in Haida Gwaii and beyond, he has developed an innovative practice rooted in tradition, and widely celebrated: thousands of people gathered to witness the raising and activation of his Reconciliation Pole; his Three Watchmen bronzes overlook the Audain Art Museum, National Gallery of Canada and the Plains of Abraham; and The Dance Screen (The Scream Too) in Whistler is considered a once-in-a-generation sculptural masterpiece. This, the first publication devoted to Hart, is both a survey of his major career achievements and a document of an impossible-to-assemble exhibition. Alongside hundreds of photos of nineteen monumental works and associated smaller carvings and bronzes scattered across North America and Europe, and drawing on over two years of interviews with the artist, Curtis Collins illustrates how key animal and supernatural figures reappear across scales and mediums, from jewellery to sixty-foot poles (the “backbone” of his practice), and speaks to the associated activation ceremonies as integral to Haida monumental art. Wade Davis considers Hart’s expressions of Haida resilience within the people’s long history, from time immemorial to the nation’s present-day efforts towards national sovereignty; Gwaliga Hart offers a personal perspective on his father’s work; and in an autobiographical essay the artist himself reflects on his life, and his life’s work.

The deeply personal story of a milestone Canadian art collection. "There are many ways to collect art, many motivations and points of departure. In my estimation, Michael Audain's is of the socially beneficial variety: avid and personal enough to cultivate the eye, local and deep enough to generate knowledge. Would that his approach were more common. This generous book shows how it's done." (Marc Mayer, C. M., former director and CEO of the National Gallery of Canada.) Michael Audain's passion for art began when he was a teenager, taping reproductions of Bruegel paintings to his dorm room walls. Over the years, his eye for art developed and together with wife Yoshiko (Yoshi) Karasawa, he acquired one of Canada's most notable collections. In Pictures on the Wall, Audain tells the story of this assemblage: from the first tentative purchases to the collection's home, today, at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, BC. With heart, humour and candour, Audain looks at seventy-five significant works that transformed both his collection and his relationship with art: the Indigenous art pieces that enthralled him from an early age, the Emily Carr paintings that inspired his lifelong connection to the artist, the works of Mexican modernists sought out after his early love of their murals, the paintings of Jean-Paul Riopelle that opened his mind to the power of non-figurative art, and many more. Accompanying each beautifully reproduced image is a description of the work and how it came to find a place in Audain's collection. Throughout, Audain's personal and practical narrative aims to light the way for anyone hoping to begin their own art collection, and to inspire everyone to explore and enjoy their own relationship with the art in their world.

The unlikely and riveting story of how a left-wing activist became one of BC's most accomplished business leaders and philanthropists, championing projects in the visual arts and innovation in Canadian wildlife protection and sustainability. Freedom rider. Student radical. Academic. Social activist. Residential developer. Museum builder. Grizzly bear protector. Michael Audain has been all of these things and more in a colourful life spanning eight decades, three continents and five careers. Born into a branch of the legendary BC Dunsmuir clan that had lost its wealth and social status, little was expected of Audain. A lonely teenager plagued by insecurities, he was a dismal failure in the classroom and on the playing field. Yet Audain would become one of the most prominent home builders in British Columbia and a well-known philanthropist in support of the visual arts and wildlife causes. Along the way, Audain did time in a Mississippi prison for participating in the Freedom Rider movement. He started the Nuclear Disarmament Club at the University of British Columbia and was a founder of the BC Civil Liberties Association. He advocated for the radical Sons of Freedom Doukhobor sect on their protest march from the Kootenays to Vancouver. He proudly displayed a photograph of the communist revolutionary Fidel Castro at the founding convention of the New Democratic Party until Tommy Douglas persuaded him to take it down. Audain worked for an airline in the Arctic, became a probation officer and a farm appraiser, was arrested in Ireland under suspicion of terrorism, and sought wisdom from a Buddhist monk in Thailand. In 1980, he took the most unexpected turn of all and became a developer in Greater Vancouver's volatile housing market. As chairman of Polygon Homes Ltd., he has been responsible for the construction of over 30,000 homes. "My life never had a business plan," muses Audain. One Man in His Time... is a story of life's unplanned twists and turns, victories and defeats, recounted with characteristic wit and candour. It is a tale of adventure and perseverance that will inspire many seeking to find their place in the world.