An invitation to consider the McMichael Canadian Art Collection’s diverse and varied collection of works by Canadian women artists. The exhibition wove together social touch points, video, poetry and literary excerpts selected by contemporary poet and journalist Lynn Crosbie. The exhibition included works by Laura Muntz Lyall, Helen McNicoll, Anne Savage, Marcelle Ferron, Rita Letendre, Joyce Wieland, Mary Pratt, Daphne Odjig and Natalka Husar.
E.J. Hughes is famous for his strong, appealing images of the landscape and seascape of British Columbia: distinctive in clarity of form and colour, yet tinged with an air of mystery. His remarkable career as an artist, which continues to this day, spans seventy years and encompasses his work as a gifted printmaker, successful muralist, outstanding Canadian war artist and prolific painter. A true son of British Columbia, Hughes’ stylized realism has earned him a unique place in the history of Canadian art.
An exhibition which explored the pivotal role that Max Stern, owner of The Dominion Gallery in Montreal, played in the circulation of Canadian modern art across the country. Paintings by Emily Carr, Paul-Émile Borduas, Stanley Cosgrove, Mabel May and others. Organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Homage to Jean Paul Lemieux marked the hundredth anniversary of Lemieux’s birth and payed tribute to this remarkable Québécois artist. Included in the exhibition were more than fifty drawings and paintings from the National Gallery of Canada as well as from other Canadian museums and private collections.
Canada’s North, a land of vast beauty, is rich in culture and artistic traditions. The Arctic Imagere-examines Canada’s North from two distinct artistic perspectives: the Inuit people who lived there for generations, and those who came much later and experienced it as an unknown environment.
This unique touring exhibition celebrated the Canadiana collection of Peter Winkworth. Winkworth,was a Canadian-born collector who, until his death on August 20, 2005, resided in Britain, and he had a driving passion for early Canadian art and the preservation of Canada's heritage. He began building his collection some forty-five years ago during which time he amassed one of the largest private collections of Canadiana. The quality and range of the collection attests to his expertise and careful research in selecting art, books and historical documents that provide a valuable record of Canada over a period of four centuries.
The Festive North focused on celebration, showcasing images of traditional and contemporary Inuit games, drum dancing, throat singing, community gatherings and feasts, quite simply all things celebratory in Inuit Art. Traditionally, the great gatherings and celebrations centred on sharing and one of the most important things shared were the games. Games played an important role in the traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle; ensuring survival they helped to improve strength, dexterity, endurance and pain resistance.
In 1995, award-winning Toronto photographer Myron Zabol began a five-year project to record, through the eyes of his camera, the lives and traditions of the Haudenosaunee, the Six Nations Iroquois, at the end of the twentieth century. This exhibition featured fifty black-and-white photographs that created a “portrait” of the complex values and beliefs of the Haudenosaunee people as expressed through their clothing and other means.
Artist's Statement: "Since I was a young boy I have been fascinated with photographs, especially historical photographs of First Nations people. I also wondered if my ancestors had photographed their world or was it just white men who made the images. I had many questions about what had taken place and with so few answers I set out to answer them myself. Along the way I met the popular American photographer Edward S. Curtis and his photographs of First Nations people and as my photographic practice matured, his work was always somewhere in the background. I was intrigued by the contrast between his view of First Nations people and the world I experienced as an urban-Iroquois, two very different yet related dancing grounds.
The exhibition presented thirty paintings and sculptures, including painted compositions on canvas, paper, deerskin drums, and cedar, as well as sculptures in both cedar and aluminum, by Haida artist guud san glans, Robert Davidson.
To many people, the Alaska Highway is simply a long line that connects two dots on a map. To others it is an essential transportation route, linking towns, cities and communities across northern Canada. To others, it is an engineering marvel − a symbol of a history of cooperation between two great nations. To the thousands of people that built it, however, the Alaska Highway was known simply as “The Road.”
This retrospective of Edwin Holgate’s work was the first since the artist’s death in 1977. The exhibition explored many aspects of this versatile artist’s production, including early works from his Montreal and Paris training, portraits of his Montreal circle of friends and family, paintings in oil and watercolour, his work as a war artist, and prints from his trip to the Skeena River region of British Columbia.
During the 1950s, the term “contemporary Inuit sculpture” was used to distinguish new work from that produced during the Prehistoric and Contact eras. Today, however, the use of this term to cover a fifty-year period has made it something of a misnomer. This exhibition focused on sculpture created over the past decade and looks at what is really “contemporary” within Inuit sculpture.
Norval Morrisseau, also called Copper Thunderbird, rose to fame in the 1960s when he developed the unique painting style known as the Woodland School. Today this art style is called Anishnaabe painting, a reference to the artist’s heritage, and the unique pictographic style influenced many other First Nations artists. This exhibition included rarely-seen or never before displayed pieces.
This exhibition showcased some of the best-known prints from Kinngait (Cape Dorset) with a focus on selected works by Kenojuak Ashevak, Pudlo Pudlat, Parr, Pitaloosie Saila, Pauta Saila, Kananginak Pootoogook, Sheojuk Etidlooie, Kingmeata Etidlooie, Pitseolak Ashoona, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Kiakshuk, Tudlik, and many other artists.
This landmark exhibition was a retrospective of the oeuvre of Takao Tanabe, internationally renowned Vancouver Island artist, winner of the Governor General’s Award, and in 1993, recipient of the Order of British Columbia. The exhibition surveyed Tanabe’s work from the 1950s through to the early years of this century.
James Houston, known as Saumik or “the left-handed one” in the Inuit language of Inuktitut, was the leading proponent in establishing printmaking in Kinngait. Houston approached his friend and fellow artist Osuitok Ipeelee during the now legendary conversation they had about the reproduction of a single graphic. After Houston demonstrated the printing technique with ink, a newly carved tusk, and tissue, Ipeelee agreed that there were indeed many interesting possibilities to be found in this new medium. The group became larger as the most talented and enthusiastic printmakers joined and the first catalogued collection was released in 1959. Noted Kinngait artists Parr, Niviaksiak, Pudlo Pudlat, Pitseolak Ashoona, Napatchie Pootoogook, Lucy Qinnuayuak, Mangitak Kellypalik, the renowned Kenojuak Ashevak, and many others all made important contributions.
Art and Society included more than forty works from the collection of the National Gallery of Canada – including paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture – looks at three generations of Canadian artists and their visions of the role of art in shaping society.
Newfoundland-based, nationally acclaimed realist painter Mary Pratt is renowned for her beautiful, sensuous still life paintings, Two of these paintings, Glassy Apples and Peach Compote, provided the inspiration for two editions of Japanese woodblock prints developed by Pratt in collaboration with Japanese master printmaker Masato Arikushi of Vancouver. These prints were the primary focus of Mary Pratt: Allusions.
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection was the premiere and only Canadian art gallery to host The Art of Robert Bateman. A native of Toronto, Robert Bateman is a name familiar to most, if not all, Canadians. Although best known around the world as a wildlife artist, Bateman’s art also encompasses other subjects – landscapes, portraits, and still lifes – each created with a careful and knowledgeable attention to the principles of composition and design. His genius lies in his ability to distil complexity into elegant simplicity thereby creating art that is accessible and enjoyable at many levels.