The life and art of Illingworth Kerr, born in Lumsden, Saskatchewan on August 20, 1905, imitated the geography of his birthplace. Angular fields, rolling skies, and the simple structures of the prairie town dominated his early work and infused his later abstract experiments with the distinct spaces of the prairie. Trained in the landscape tradition of the "Group of Seven" at the Ontario College of Art, Kerr returned to the Prairies to struggle with the subject matter of his birthplace.

He vividly described his life in his autobiography, Paint and Circumstance, completed in 1987. The writing is a reflection of his character, a pragmatic view of prairie life combined with romantic descriptions of his artistic p...