Master Works from the Collection
January 17 to April 26, 2009
The exhibition, Master Works from the Collection, presented works by English, French, and Aboriginal Canadian artists from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The art works were selected from the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre and University of Guelph collections by exhibition curator Judith Nasby.
Late nineteenth-century artists like Frederick Arthur Verner and Alfred Worsley Holdstock created romanticized views of First Nations People. Their paintings depicted an idyllic world of encampments and peaceful contentment at a time when native people were decimated by disease and suffered assimilation policies that included residential schools, forced removals to reservations, and the loss of the language and culture. During this period, First Nations People were also creating magnificent quill and bead work for their own traditional regalia. Later they began making objects for tourists as an economic strategy.
The exhibition also included a selection of work by Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. These works reveal the artists’ emotional and expressive response to the vastness of the Canadian landscape, and to the impact of the logging industry. In French Canada, artists like Marc-Aurčle de Foy Suzor-Coté and Clarence Gagnon created remarkable landscapes and village scenes in an impressionist manner continuing a style introduced in France decades earlier. The significance of the Church in Quebec during this period was represented by an altarpiece by Ozias Leduc, a prominent artist working in a symbolist style.
The exhibition, Master Works from the Collection, featured many important donations made to the collections since 1926 when Tom Thomson’s The Drive was acquired with funds raised by the Ontario Agricultural College students who sold used newspapers to raise $500 to purchase the painting from the artist’s estate.
Exhibition Opening
Saturday, January 17 at 1 pm
Gallery Talk with curator Judith Nasby
Tuesday, March 17 at noon
Images:
Left: Tom Thomson, The Drive, circa 1916 (oil on canvas)
Ontario Agricultural College purchase with funds raised by students, faculty, and staff, 1926, University of Guelph Collection at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre
Centre: Frederick Arthur Verner, Ojibway Indian Encampment, 1875 (oil on canvas)
Presented in memory of Frederick and Kathleen Metcalf by their children and grandchildren, 2004, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection
Right: Franz Johnston, Untitled, not dated (oil on board)
Gift of John Bligh and Nancy Bailey Bligh, 2009, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection