Michael Snow is known internationally for his facility with media as various as drawing, sculpture, painting, holography, photography, installations and filmmaking. In addition, he has achieved success a jazz musician. Snow was born in Toronto in 1929 and graduated from the Ontario College of Art in 1952. By 1970, a major retrospective of his work was held at the AGO. At that point Snow was best known for his Walking Women series, which brought issues of representation and perception to the forefront of his artistic practice.

In the 1980s Snow turned increasingly to photography to explore these concerns. In Race, Snow creates human-like figures out of clay that appear to be caught in freeze frame while running. The work combines references to various media, the several meanings of the word “race,” and comments humorously on the theatrical urgency that characterizes modern urban life.