Together with important First Nations material, the Thomson Canadian Collection is the largest of all private holdings of Canadian art. Ten essays by authorities on Northwest Coast art, Cornelius Krieghoff, James Wilson Morrice, Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven painters Frederick Varley, Lawren Harris and J.E.H. MacDonald, as well as David Milne, Paul-Emile Borduas and William Kurelek, explore in depth and breadth centuries of artistic achievement in Canada. Rare and incomparable examples of Northwest Coast Aboriginal art in the Thomson Collection of Canadian art are distinctive in their design vocabulary and rich in symbolic meaning. Krieghoff's inspired accounts of life in the Canadas, prior to Confederation, bring the light and atmosphere of history fully into the present. A staggering power to capture the fleeting and the fugitive in paint still distinguishes the work of the early 20th-century painter, Morrice.

By comparison, Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven loaded their brushes with the raw pigment of the Canadian wilderness to set the enduring standard of Canadian landscape art. Milne, and then Borduas, remain international leaders of experimental painterly practice. Kurelek, by contrast, painted the story of his life with unparallelled intensity and individuality. Altogether these artists tell the rich story of the country Ken Thomson called home. The contributors to the volume include Jeremy Adamson, Katerina Atanassova, Steven Brown, Lucie Dorais, Charles Hill, Joan Murray, Roald Nasgaard, Dennis Reid, David Silcox, and Shirley Thomson.