Wabanaki Modern tells the story of how, in the early 1960s, a modernist movement—unlike any other—took hold for a brief but powerful eight years in New Brunswick. In Elsipogtog, the province’s largest First Nations reserve, the Micmac Indian Craftsmen (MIC) collective rose to national prominence and forever changed the landscape of modern Indigenous art in Atlantic Canada.
Inspired by stories of the Wabanaki—ancestors of present-day Indigenous Peoples including the Abenaki, Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot Nations—the collective’s trailblazing work was included at Expo 67 and it grabbed national headlines. Led by artists Michael Francis and Stephen Dedham, the visual language of MIC fused modern geometric abstraction with traditional Wabanaki heritage to create eclectic, often minimalist, and unabashedly contemporary works.
By 1966, however, the withdrawal of government support compromised the resources of MIC, and its production ceased by 1970. Its work faded from memory for decades until 2022, when the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and Goose Lane Editions published a trilingual edition of the book to coincide with an exhibition of the same name spotlighting the collective’s groundbreaking work, which paved the way for future generations of Indigenous artists to follow. The ACI web version of the book is produced under license from Goose Lane Editions.
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© 2026 Art Canada Institute.
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-4871-0403-0
Published in Canada
Art Canada Institute
Massey College, University of Toronto
4 Devonshire Place
Toronto, ON M5S 2E1
Banner Images: (left) Michael Francis, The Micmac Indian Legend of Our Seasons–Glooscap, Tatler the Loon, and the Summer Queen, 1963. (right) Royal Tuscan, The Micmac Indian Legends of the Little People fine china set, 1964.
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