Past Exhibitions

In celebration of a career spanning more than four decades, Joe Fafard was featured in a major retrospective exhibition that chronicled the full scope of this remarkable Saskatchewan artist's career and featured over 60 pieces of his oeuvre. Focusing primarily on Fafard’s extraordinary sculptures—which vary in size from small clay figures to large bronze and steel works, the exhibit explored Fafard’s portraiture work of family, friends, Aboriginal heritage, politicians and others.

For many artists, drawing is an important component of their creativity. Drawing Conclusions presented 25 pieces by Canada's most prominent contemporary artists and approximately 70 drawings by members of the Group of Seven, demonstrating the importance of freehand drawing in the training of artists throughout of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This exhibition provided a rare opportunity to view drawings that are seldom exhibited due to their sensitivity to light.

Although admired as one of Canada’s literary giants, very little is known of Reaney’s visual art practice. The Iconography of the Imagination: The Art of James Reaney introduced Reaney as an artist and provided an overview of his artistic production from the 1940s to the mid-1990s, and examined his art in relation to his writings. Reaney states that art has been a “constant” in his life, and much like his writing grew out of a desire to “keep a record” (Jean McKay, “What on earth are you doing, Sir?” ArtScape, Issue 5, June 2006, 10).

Miller Brittain’s life as an artist is defined partly by the large and diverse body of drawings and paintings that trace a course of self examination, interpret the life and people around him, and probe his spiritual and emotional landscapes. Brittain (1912-1968) was a figurative artist at a time when landscape painting of the Group of Seven and their followers held sway in Canadian art.

This exhibition featured works on paper by members of the Group of Seven who, in addition to their well-known paintings of uninhabited landscapes, also depicted scenes from local communities. Works by Lawren S. Harris, Franklin Carmichael, A.Y. Jackson and A.J. Casson representing Toronto; Cobalt, Ontario; Gaspé, Quebec, and other communities were displayed alongside information related to the artists’ experiences in working with their subjects.

Stones, Bones and Stitches is an exhibition of Inuit works from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection’s permanent collection based on a new publication by Tundra Books written by McMichael curators Shelley Falconer and Shawna White.

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.

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.

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.

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.