ABSTRACT
Expressionism was a powerful impulse among North American artists, one that resonated through a number of local developments and attitudes, though received in very different ways in the United States and Canada. While the movement influenced numerous American artists within five years of its birth in Germany, in 1905, it was not until 1928 that it had a direct impact on Canadian art. Many of the earliest North American expressionists were in fact immigrants from Germany or of German ancestry. This firsthand contact with early expressionism afforded artists in the New World opportunities to see exhibitions, read publications, and meet some of the leading artists—contacts that were essential in bringing the movement to Americans who otherwise would have had little exposure to it.
