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Raymond Biesinger

@raymondbiesinger

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Montréal illustrator-artist-author as seen all over the place. Posting my work, historical niches and Canadian cultural objects. Prints available.

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Big news alert: “9 Times My Work Has Been Ripped Off” is now officially out. That means you can walk into any old bookstore—wherever you live—and grab a copy or get them to special order one for you through the channels @drawnandquarterly books usually arrive through. It’s been absolutely thrilling to see the early bird and review copies get out in the world, and your responses to it (re: that it’s useful, that it’s a page-turner, that it’s a beautiful book, etc.) are equally thrilling.

Flip through the above slides to see a half-dozen such responses to the book as well as a half-dozen illustrations within it. Also of note: I hope to see you at tomorrow night’s book launch event in Montréal or any of the half-dozen other appearances I’ll be making before the year’s up. Book tour dates and places are still a little bit up in the air, but I’ll give you some concrete infos shortly.

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if you can feel me radiate new book pride. taken in Montreal, Quebec by @raymondbiesinger

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a year ago

Four years ago this week @alexbozikovic and I’s “305 Lost Buildings of Canada” was released on @goose_lane and everything changed for me. Books became a thing I could do on a larger scale, and after a whole lot of DIY I realized I could also plug my skills and thoughts into a quality team like the Goose and Alex. It felt great and resulted in (what I still think today) is an excellent book.

It seems you folks think it’s pretty good, too. Flip though the above for some pages and covers and blurbs and accolades, and if you have a copy, thank you for getting one. Don’t have a copy yet? I bet your local bookstore is still stocking them. It shouldn’t be that hard to find. And I can’t wait to show you what comes next.

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if you’re a fan of Alex and the Goose. taken in Canada by @raymondbiesinger

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7 months ago

SALE ALERT: next week I’ll be removing 2/3 of the hundred or so maps in my the “Western Canada Illustrated,” “Ontario Illustrated,” “Québec Illustrated,” and “Atlantic Canada Illustrated” print collections, some of which you can see above. It’s just too labour intensive for a guy like me to adequately maintain and present so many dang shop listings.

So! Until the end of Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, you can get 20% off of anything in all four of those collections. Discounts applied at checkout. Now you know.

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if you, too, are not adequately maintaining and presenting your listings. taken in Canada by @raymondbiesinger

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a day ago

I don’t go to a house of worship, but I couldn’t go to these ones even if I wanted to—they’ve been bulldozed, burned down, or otherwise demolished over the last 100 years and are thus in my “Lost Buildings” print series. Note that there’s a book, too, and it includes many, many, kinds of buildings that are now gone.

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if your body is a temple with a leaking foundation and mysterious, sullied, altars. taken in Canada by @raymondbiesinger

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2 days ago

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3 days ago

Historic ripoffs are among my favourite things, so let’s put Canadian pictorial map master Arthur W. Wallace’s 1935 image of Halifax side by side with an obvious 1937 rip by an anonymous illustrator. Both are from the City of Halifax Municipal Archives. Both share the same orientation and colour scheme. Both seem to be for the same client. One, though, is clearly inferior to the other. LOLZ.

Anyway, because capitalism and the public domain, you can buy copies of Wallace’s original that I’ve personally retouched and printed. Visit the “Atlantic Canada Illustrated” collection of my site and you’re set.

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if you’re ready to admit you ripped off Wallace. taken in Halifax, Nova Scotia by @raymondbiesinger

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4 days ago

From 2012 to 2016 I was fully immersed in a getting-to-know-you exercise with Canada’s architectural history, an exercise you might know better as my “Canadian Cities” print series. What’s in that print series? 10 views of different Canadian cities during different moments in history spanning from 1919 (Winnipeg during their General Strike) to 2008 (Québec City during its 400th birthday). I drew each in B&W and grey with between 50 and 150 specific buildings shown as they stood at the set time, and here are some fun facts about the set:

-a few thousand of these are now on walls all over the world—thank you for that
-I mistakenly included the Eternal Flame statue on “Ottawa in 1945” print, though it wouldn’t be installed for another 22 years
-ditto for the Emera Oval in the “Halifax in 1996”—it hadn’t been installed yet in ’96
-a shop in Toronto sold bootlegs of the Toronto version ’til I “politely” intervened
-a Dartmouth man threatened to seize and burn the Halifax prints
-the City of Sherbrooke commissioned a Sherbrooke version
-an uncompleted “City of Saskatoon” set in 1964 still sits in my archive
-the simplest of the series (Ottawa) took 4 days to make
-the most complex of the series (Edmonton) took 15 days to make
-the tiny rectangles are people

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if you’re one of the tiny rectangles. taken in Canada by @raymondbiesinger

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8 days ago

Back by popular demand.

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if it’s all about the Book Club Scambots we met along the way. taken in Montreal, Quebec by @raymondbiesinger

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9 days ago

The Canadian Aesthetic-Historical Instagram-O-Sphere is a group I started last year, and it’s a bunch of people who don’t know I’ve put them in a group. It’s a group that works with cultural and historical objects and images that are within the borders of modern-day “Canada,” and it generally widens the visual vocabulary that tries to define “here” and “us.”

It’s far larger than 20 accounts, but here are the ones I’ve managed to label and tag with the limited time I have available.

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if you like have widened a definition. taken in Canada by @raymondbiesinger

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11 days ago

2027 is creeping up, and if you’re needing all the months of that year on your wall, consider getting one of the six flavours of RB One-Sheet Calendars I now have in the shop. Each month is collaged from a historical calendar in a year that mirrors 2027, meaning that January of 1954 works perfectly fine as a substitute for January of next year. The Gregorian calendar is special like that.

Find additional details on my site, and note that I’ve dropped off one of each colour at @v.j.taylor in Montréal’s Sud-Ouest, should you be free to see them in-person.

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if you taste colours. taken in Montreal, Quebec by @raymondbiesinger

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15 days ago

I think every illustrator has at least one alphabet book in their pile of unrealized projects, and here’s one from my pile that I don’t think is going anywhere: “Addis to Zagreb.”

It was supposed to be an architectural study of world cities anchored by the letters A though Z. The cities were all B&W plus one colour and populated by a single family or small group of people doing plausible local things. An Egyptian dad and girl going to the post office, and she’s reading while walking? You got it. Hopscotch in London? Uh-huh.

Find twenty of them above, and note that all the cities I felt were “finished” I’ve presented to you in colour. All the unfinished ones are in grey.

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if you are doing plausible local things. taken in The World by @raymondbiesinger

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16 days ago

Housecat flags. That’s what I wanted to fill this entire post with, but there weren’t enough of them—I had to enlarge my research net to include lion and tiger flags. Hopefully such big cats won’t spoil the party. Find 18 such flags above, and note that all are active unless otherwise mentioned.

Also, the last two slides are of my own two non-cat but still flag-related prints. Details in the shop. Meow, meow, meow.

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@raymondbiesinger - www.fifteen.ca
Like if you’re the mouse in the Londerzeel cat’s mouth. taken in The Cat Box by @raymondbiesinger

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17 days ago