A devoted and powerful champion of Canadian arts and culture, David Silcox's life story dazzles with tales beyond the easel and canvas.

Son of a Prairie Dust Bowl preacher, David Silcox rose through the ranks of the Canadian cultural establishment to support and promote Canadian artists around the world.

From his early days as the first Arts Officer of the Canada Council in the mid-1960s, to his position as Deputy Minister of Culture for the province of Ontario in the late 1980s, to his command of Sotheby's Canada in the last decade of the century, David Silcox created and supported the successes of visual artists such as Tom Thomson, Christopher Pratt, Harold Town, and David Milne.

With the eye of a practiced treasure-seeker, he was responsible for returning a number of Canadian art treasures by artists such as Paul Kane and Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven back to native soil and celebrating the work of Canadian artists internationally.

This first-ever biography of David Silcox showcases a champion of Canadian art through his life and efforts to elevate artists from home around the world.