Tom Burrows

Douglas & McIntyre has produced a number of artist monographs over the years. I was fortunate to contribute to one of them: Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs (2007).

But a lot has changed since the publication of Fred's book. That same year, the majority of D&M's stock was sold to ex-banker and venture capitalist Mark Scott, whose attempt to "rebrand" the company as both a traditional commissioning agent and a consumer-driven book broker (Bookriff) collapsed, leaving a number of authors in the lurch. While Harbour Publishing picked up the proverbial pieces, doing its best to compensate out-of-pocket authors and suppliers, UK-based Black Dog Publishing emerged as the go-to institutional partner for exhibition monographs on B.C.-based artists Myfanwy MacLeod, Jerry Pethick and Ian Wallace, to name a few.

As Black Dog roared along, publishing monographs of uneven quality with the VAG, the Belkin and the Contemporary Art Gallery, a small group of ex-D&M employees quietly formed Figure.1, a house that continues to do what D&M did so well -- building a solid list of "Art+Design" titles, but also a readership for those titles. That the company is making a go of it shows that there is always an audience for well-made books.

A forthcoming title on the Figure.1 list is Tom Burrows, to be published in conjunction with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in October 2018. The book contains essays by exhibition curator Scott Watson and Burrows contemporary Ian Wallace, in addition to some remarkable photographs of Burrows's 1960s home and sculptures at the Maplewood Mudflats just east of the Second Narrows Bridge and the home he made for himself at Hornby Island's Downes Point in the 1970s.

Here is Figure.1's "Book Description":

Tom Burrows, and the exhibition that preceded the book, presents work by the artist from his early career to the present. The book is a timely refocusing of attention on an artist who has made an immense contribution to the development of art in Vancouver, not only as an artist but as an educator and activist as well. Burrows first rose to prominence in the late-1960s and was included in several exhibitions at the UBC Fine Arts Library, an institution that was seminal in encouraging Vancouver’s growing and now vibrant art community. In 1975 he received a United Nations commission to document squatters communities in Europe, Africa and Asia, a work that is now in the Belkin’s collection. Burrows’ work, which demonstrates an interest in process and new materials, has encompassed a number of disciplines including sculpture, early performance art, video, painting and iconic hand-built houses on the Maplewood Mudflats and Hornby Island. Currently most well known for his innovative monochromatic cast polymer resin “paintings/sculptures” produced during the last forty-five years, the book examines the full breadth of his career with works from the Belkin’s permanent collection as the basis with other works from the artist, collectors and public institutions.