The Collection on View

February 23, 2010 to February 27, 2010

Bartholomaeus Bruyn the Younger, Portrait of a Man, c. 1525.

Beginning in February, the EUROfix exhibition will change into a new installation that continues to build on the art historical roots already established in this ongoing presentation of the permanent collection. Many of the European artworks will remain on display, but they will be joined by an impressive selection of masterworks from the Canadian collection. The new exhibition features over 150 paintings, drawings, decorative arts, and sculptures drawn exclusively from the WAG’s own collection. Spanning six hundred years, the installation pays homage to the Gallery’s European and Canadian holdings, established upon a rich tradition of discerning tastes, creative minds, and public generosity.

Introduced in the first space of this three-gallery exhibition are religious and secular paintings and objects from Northern and Western Europe, and produced between 1400 and 1800. The selection not only highlights the evolution of painting itself, through the representation of perspective and human form, but also the changing relationship between artist and patron. Traversing the mid-19th century, viewers will discover paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts by Canadian artists integrated with the European contingent. Here we observe not only the continuation of Old World styles and themes by New World artists, but we also discern how European aesthetic sensibilities were adapted to and transformed by the North American experience. Euro-Canadian interaction continues within one gallery dedicated solely to works on paper, ranging from topographic studies of the Canadian frontier by early artist-explorers, to Impressionist and Expressionist innovators, to mid-20th century drawings by Inuit masters]. The final offering in the third gallery of the exhibition invites viewers to consider overlapping influences between European and Canadian artists during the first-half of the 20th century.

With the rise of Modernism, artists continued to draw from the past for inspiration, as well as taking older models in revolutionary new directions, often seeking to create new modes of expression using ideas found in non-European visual cultures.

Sponsored by the Johnston Group.

Akeeaktashuk, Shman Riding a Bear, c. 1952.