The Native Trees of Canada is a little gem of a book by New York illustrator Leanne Shapton that was sent to me for review and got tucked away last fall in the rush of the holiday season (sorry Raincoast Books). It recently came to surface in my office under a pile of magazines and now I am doing everything in my power not to pull the pages out and frame each and every beautiful image inside. The book was inspired by a book Leanne purchased from a Toronto bookstore titled: Native Trees of Canada, Bulletin No. 61, Fifth Edition; published in 1956 by the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, Forestry Branch. Leanne has reinterpreted it into a series of bold, painted images, taking complex objects and stripping them down into stark, sometimes abstract shapes and colours. It's truly a beautiful book for the collector and lover of nature. Published by Drawn + Quarterly (distributed by Raincoast Books out of Canada).
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| Collage image from Paris Review |
