For many British artists of the first half of the twentieth century, landscape painting, with its strong and venerable tradition, was also the chosen vehicle for exploring Modernist ideas, styles, and techniques. Building on the legacy of J. M. W. Turner and John Constable, and stirred by the innovations of recent French avant-garde art, painters imparted a variety of visions to a genre revered in the history of British art from the beginning of the eighteenth century -engendering a complex debate between the traditional and modern that would endure until mid-century.

As a result, no single artistic movement dominated landscape painting in the Britain of this era, although affinities in style did emerge as artists formed numerous exhibiting groups and societies. The subjects they depicted were equally eclectic: everything from quaint villages to bleak urban scenes, from picturesque beaches and forests to populated coastal towns. Landscape provided an ideal subject for experiment with recording the transitory nature of light and shade; the influence of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist styles can be seen in the use of a bright palette and loose handling of paint. Explorations into abstraction were interrupted for a time by the arrival of two world wars.  Many artists served in the forces, and the experience altered their subsequent relationship with the land: some sought refuge in idyllic scenery, while others abandoned their earlier experiments in abstraction, feeling compelled to depict the impact of war or extol the beauties of the British countryside in clear, figurative terms. Between and after the wars, British artists resumed their aesthetic and formal explorations, continuing to record the changing vistas they saw both in their native land and on their extensive European travels with a heightened social awareness.

The Changing Land: Modern British Landscape Painting 1900-1950 will provide a unique opportunity for visitors to the Kelowna Art Gallery to view a selection of significant paintings from the National Gallery of Canada's permanent collection.

Landscape painting is just one aspect of the National Gallery of Canada's rich holdings in modern British art. In 1946, the Gallery was the beneficiary of the gift of the Massey Collection of English Painting, comprising 75 works (later expanded to include 86 works) by the leading British artists of the early twentieth century. A lifelong supporter of the arts, Vincent Massey served as a Trustee of the National Gallery of Canada from 1925 to 1940, and as Chairman of the Board from then until he was appointed as the first Canadian Governor General of Canada in 1952. Vincent and Alice Massey were active collectors during their residence in London, where he served as High Commissioner for Canada between 1935 and 1946. The majority of works in this exhibition are drawn from their donation. In keeping with the national exhibition mandate of the National Gallery and the conditions of the Massey Gift, The Changing Land offers all Canadians a renewed opportunity, the first in several decades, to see this valued part of the Gallery's permanent collection.

Britain's central involvement in two world wars had a significant impact on its artists.The outbreak of the First World War brought many of the modern forces in painting to a standstill, not least because so many artists entered military service. The experience altered their subsequent relationship with the land: some sought refuge in idyllic scenery, while others abandoned their earlier experiments in abstraction, feeling compelled to depict the aftermath of war. The approach of the Second World War sparked a reclaimed nationalist fervour, and bursts of realism and romanticism again briefly supplanted the development of abstract painting in Britain. The focus shifted to the rapid transformation of the natural and social landscape; foremost in the minds of artists was the need to record these changing vistas. More than ever before there was an urgency to let indigenous voices and visions prevail, that they might somehow instill again in Britons a rooted sense of place. Abstraction rebounded, but with it came the explicit recognition of the land as a defining element. 

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