CALGARY.- Immerse yourself in the vibrant colours of the Jazz Age with 1920s Modernism in Montreal: The Beaver Hall Group.

With its busy port, booming economy and prohibition-free nightlife, Montreal in the 20s epitomized modernity, and the artists that made up the Beaver Hall Group effectively harnessed and reflected this forward-bearing energy in their work.

”Their animated urban scenes depict a bustling scenes depict a bustling, grown-up metropolis,” notes Nathalie Blondil, Director and Chief Curator, Montreal Museum of Fine Art. “Instead of regionalist folklore, they exude confidence – both in oneself and the future.”

Although considered a Montreal counterpart to Toronto's Group of Seven, the group stood apart through their work: rather than offering an image of Canadian identity through depictions of the untamed landscapes of a northern country, the Montreal artists imbued the inhabited landscapes of a northern culture with the colours of modernity.

They also painted many portraits that convey this same quest for modernism; these works rank among the most remarkable in the history of Canadian art. The near equal numbers of male and female artists in the group - a first in Quebec as in Canada - is another resolutely modern trait.

The exhibition 1920s Modernism in Montreal: The Beaver Hall Group presents works by its official members as well as by artists associated with them through friendship and solidarity; it demonstrates that the group's diversity fuelled rich and fruitful exchanges. Glenbow is presenting present this, the first major exhibition to focus on this important period in Canadian Art History, in its only scheduled Western Canadian stop.