THE brief history of Canadian art is much less known than that of art in the U.S., but nearly as respectable. Reflecting a stable, rural, sparsely populated land, Canadian art has been even more provincial than U.S. painting, and full of vigor. A sizable show at Canada's National Gallery in Ottawa brings together some of the nation's best canvases. The color pages, opposite and overleaf, are a sampling of the exhibition.
¶ François Malepart de Beaucourt, who painted the Negro Slave, was Canada's first artist of international caliber. Trained in France, he developed a slick and brisk technique which well suited...