Linking cultural policy from Great Britain to Canada.

The Canada Council marks its fiftieth anniversary in 2007. The third national arts council to be established after the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1946, it was created on the recommendation of a Royal Commission chaired by Vincent Massey, a Canadian philanthropist and diplomat. While it differed from the ACGB in its early scope and organization, it was and is an arm's-length body. Using unpublished and published sources, I track Massey's social contacts during his tenure as High Commissioner to London from 1935 to 1946, where he served on the war-time boards of the National Gallery and the Tate. This work put him in social contact with Samuel Courtauld, J. M. Keynes, and Kenneth Clark, who were engaged in the governance of British national arts organizations. My findings illustrate the influence that friendships and social networks played in arts policy formulation in these early years of the arts council model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]