2009 Exhibition Archives
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January 17 to May 3, 2009
Inspirational: The Collection of H.S. Southam
Guest curated by Alicia Boutilier
Newspaper publisher Harry Stevenson Southam (1875-1954) was recognized as one of Canada’s foremost collectors of art in the 1930s and 1940s. His home in Ottawa was filled with modern European and Canadian paintings that were often requested for major exhibitions. As Chairman of the National Gallery of Canada Board of Trustees for almost twenty years, he helped shape the national collection and foster an appreciation of new Canadian art. Southam’s generosity extended across the country during this critical collection-building period, but he gave more to Hamilton, where he grew up, than to any other city. As AGH director at the time T.R. MacDonald stated, Southam’s gifts made clear “not only the extent and importance of his support (given partly, as he said, in order to encourage others), but also what a perceptive and knowledgeable collector he was, for these pictures had been gathered for his own pleasure.”
For the first time in decades, Inspirational reassembles major works from Southam’s collection, at the core of which were the Canadian paintings, his true passion. The exhibition moves from impressive canvases of the Group of Seven, to the highly charged period of the 1930s, including works by many women artists, such as Emily Carr, Prudence Heward, Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Sarah Robertson, Anne Savage, and Lilias Torrance Newton. It ends with Southam’s later taste for such rising Quebec artists as Louis Muhlstock, Jacques de Tonnancour, and Paul-Émile Borduas. A sample of Southam’s European collection reveals not only how his early aesthetic interests shaped his later Canadian choices, but also how international movements inspired Canadian art.
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January 24 to May 3, 2009
Visual Poetry: The Collection of Pierre Karch and Mariel O’Neill Karch
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
Visual Poetry represents a very special instalment of the Gallery’s Collectors Exhibition Series, featuring thirty-three stellar works acquired through the years by Toronto collectors Pierre Karch and Mariel O’Neill-Karch, and then generously donated by the couple to the AGH at the end of 2007 — the most significant gift to the Gallery since the donation of The Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Collection in 2002. The Karches are not only avid collectors and steady supporters of the Gallery, but have also taught French language and literature for many years, and published numerous writings, including mutual collaborations and critical essays on the visual arts.
The works in Visual Poetry range from historical European and Canadian art to contemporary pieces, the three key collecting strengths of the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Contextualizing the Karch donation within the larger AGH holdings, the exhibition presents additional works by the same artists from the Gallery’s pre-existing permanent collections. Among the artists included are Eugène Delacroix and Puvis de Chavannes, two major French masters from the beginning and end of the nineteenth century; leading French Surrealist André Masson; Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté and Jean Paul Lemieux, central figures respectively in the history of Quebec sculpture and painting; and Louis de Niverville and Jennifer Dickson, two foremost contemporary Canadian artists. The title of the exhibition — Visual Poetry — relates on more than one level to the Karch works, many of which either reveal whimsical graphic qualities of materials and technique, or offer juxtapositions of abstract pictorial forms that encourage us to unlock their unique significations.
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January 24 to May 18, 2009
ATELIER: Christina Sealey and Richard Oddie
Living Spaces: Imagining Hamilton
Curated by Sara Knelman
Hamilton artists and collaborators Christina Sealey and Richard Oddie have spent much of the last couple of years rediscovering our city through extensive visits to neighbourhoods, iconic landscapes and landmarks, and by talking candidly with residents and friends about their diverse experiences of Hamilton. The result is an audio-visual expression of their findings. Paintings of different scale depict people and urban landscapes, all surrounded by a layered soundscape that fuses ambient noises from different regions of the city along with short edited portions from interviews conducted in that area.
As viewers move through the space, they will be immersed in different visions of the city and in different possibilities of urban life here. It is the artists’ hope that the exhibition will invite reflection on the different ways in which Hamilton and its various regions are experienced, interpreted and valued.
Christina Sealey studied art at McMaster University and Dundas Valley School of Art and holds an MFA from the School of Drawing and Painting, Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. Richard Oddie has been working with sound and video since the mid-90s and is finishing a PhD at York University in environmental politics and urban sustainability. Sealey and Oddie also collaborate regularly on live electronic music and video presentations, and have performed together in Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as in Canada and the US.
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January 31 to May 18, 2009
Jean-Pierre Gauthier: Machines at Play
This exhibition is organized and circulated by the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, with financial support from the Museums Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Montreal artist Jean-Pierre Gauthier has been active on the contemporary art scene since the mid-1990s, when he quickly gained recognition for the inventiveness of his work. The kinetic installations that have emerged from his exploration of the acoustic and metaphorical potential of the found object combine humour and poetry in a highly rigorous investigative approach. With an ingenuity seldom seen, they bring together the notions of order and chaos, permanence and fragility, performance and gratuitousness.
Born in Matane, Jean-Pierre Gauthier lives and works in Montreal. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, in Quebec and the rest of Canada, in the United States and in Europe. In 2004 he was the winner of the prestigious Sobey Art Award, and in 2005 he received the Victor-Martyn-Lynch-Staunton Award, presented by the Canada Council for the Arts to an artist in mid-career.
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June 4 to September 13, 2009
TURN ON: Contemporary Italian Art
Curated by Sara Knelman
TURN ON invites three of Italy’s most dynamic contemporary artists to engage viewers in Hamilton. The AGH will showcase Massimo Grimaldi’s evocative texts, Adrian Paci’s poetic films and Patrick Tuttofuoco’s vibrant sculptures. Their works are connected by a desire to activate urban environments. With suggestive language, electric currents and vivid colour, they harness the power of their subjects as a way of turning on their viewers.
All three artists were born during the period of Arte Povera, the influential Italian art movement that favoured readily available materials and shifted emphasis from form to idea. Too young to be conscious of the movement as it was happening, their works instead reflect both a progression of, and a freedom from, what is arguably the most significant reign of Italian art since the Renaissance. Although they live and work in Italy, their art practices are informed by a consciously global outlook.
This will be the first exhibition in Canada of all of the work on view, and the first show ever for Grimaldi and Tuttofuoco. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full colour catalogue.
Massimo’s text pieces on James Street North at Cannon were presented in collaboration with the Hamilton Artists Inc.
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May 16 to September 27, 2009
New Dawn: Italian Renaissance Art from Canadian Collections
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
Standing as the anchor Summer historical exhibition within the Gallery’s yearlong celebration of Italian art and culture, New Dawn: Italian Renaissance Art from Canadian Collections provides AGH visitors with the unique opportunity to enjoy major Italian Renaissance works housed in leading Canadian collections, including the McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Featuring a range of representative works emanating from the grand Italian tradition, New Dawn focuses principally on art from the early Renaissance through Mannerism, yet includes some later works demonstrating the evolution of the grand tradition. The exhibition embraces diverse subjects, manners, and media, including painting, sculpture, drawings and prints, as well as Italian ceramic maiolica generously loaned from the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. A first for the city of Hamilton, New Dawn showcases beautiful works from sister Canadian institutions that originate from a central historical period, when Western art was completely transformed and Italy played the leading role in this overwhelming cultural transformation. Among the varied treasures on view will be the fine oil portrait of an unknown man by Tintoretto, the most prolific Venetian painter of the late 16th century (National Gallery); a masterful and lively red chalk drawing of Venus and Cupid by Giulio Cesare Procaccini (Bologna, 1574–Milan, 1625) (AGO); and religious works such as the oil on panel Adoration of the Shepherds attributed to Florentine painter Tommaso di Stefano (1495–1564) (AGO).
Exhibition Partners: Frisina Group; Charles Criminisi, Partner - Agro Zaffiro LLP
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May 16 to September 27, 2009
Great Masters Series: Psyche with a Butterfly
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
Complementing New Dawn, this instalment of the Great Masters Series spotlights the late nineteenth-century Italian sculptor Cesare Lapini's Psyche with a Butterfly, an exquisite white crystalline marble statue being loaned by the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.
A Florentine born in 1848 and exhibiting in Rome in the last years of the nineteenth century, Lapini celebrated feminine beauty in sculptures of mythological figures such as Cupid's famous lover Psyche as well as contemporary flirtatious women of fashion. Combining the movement and brilliance of the work of Lapini's older compatriot, the Baroque master Gianlorenzo Bernini, with a modern sensuality, Lapini's Psyche possesses a robust body that appears poised to ascend skyward from the earth.
Exhibition Partner: Dr. Michael and Mary Romeo
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May 16 to September 27, 2009
On the Edge of Your Seat: Italian Chairs from the Collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
This exhibition is a collaboration between the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Co-curated by Diane Charbonneau, Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and Sara Knelman, Curator of Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Hamilton
In the wake of Il Modo Italiano, the MMFA’s successful touring exhibition of Italian design from the 20th century, this new collaborative effort will focus on a selection of the Museum’s exceptional examples of post-1960s Italian-designed chairs. On the Edge of Your Seat will explore the development of materials and materiality in Italian chairs from the 1960s to the present, through the opposing tangible and tactile qualities Soft and Hard, Light and Heavy. The exhibition will bring together work by renowned Italian-born designers such as Jonathan de Pas, Alessandro Mendini and Gaetano Pesce with pieces by international artists such as Louise Campbell (Denmark), Roberto Matta (Chile) and Masanori Umeda (Japan), who have each created pieces exclusively for Italian design companies.
The chair is the ultimate expression of the fusion between function and form, imbued with the power to hold the human body and captivate the human imagination. The works brought together for this special event are often inspired by contemporary life, infusing everyday objects with exuberant personality and a spirit of the era of their creation.
Exhibition Partners: The Hutton Family; Mark A. Rizzo, CIBC Wood Gundy
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December 13, 2008 to November 22, 2009
Il bellissimo panorama: Views of Italy
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
Through many centuries the towns and countryside of Italy have been singularly cherished as a subject within Western art. For instance, in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, a fundamental component of artistic training was the voyage to Italy, where young artists steeped themselves in studying, copying, and imbibing the spirit of ancient Roman and Renaissance architecture, monuments, sculptures, and other art forms. By the nineteenth century, many international students completing the required Italian pilgrimage found just as much inspiration in the idyllic charm and natural beauty of living towns and landscape, as well as the colourful life and dress of folkloric types like peasants of the Roman Campagna or Neapolitan fishers.
Ushering in the Gallery’s 2009 Vista Italia celebration of Italian art and culture, the inaugural exhibition of Il bellissimo panorama features a fresh and poetic assortment of approximately forty Italian views from the AGH holdings — created by diverse European, Canadian, and American artists, and ranging in time from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Subjects include scenic sketches of named and unnamed Italian hill and mountain towns; prints representing Assisi and Siena; a large watercolour of an antique terrace on the hills outside Florence; and a dramatic oil by the French artist Jean Charles Joseph Rémond of Neptune’s Grotto in Tivoli. The exhibition also offers several views of figures outdoors, ranging from ancient Roman gods and goddesses to Italian peasants. Not surprisingly, one of the most recurring themes is Venice, christened La Serenissima (It.: “most serene”). Among the Canadian works depicting this queen of cities are two lively graphite sketches by A. Y. Jackson, three evocative oil paintings by James Morrice, and three crisp black-and-white photographs of Venetian canals by contemporary artist Jeff Nolte.
Exhibition Partner: The Frisina Family, in memory of Alfonso E. Frisina
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March 28 to December 13, 2009
Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Vedute E Capricci
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
The most acclaimed printmaker of eighteenth-century Italy, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) was also an architect, designer, theorist, and archaeologist. He is best known, however, for his etched vedute (It.: “views”) and capricci (It.: “caprices” or “fantasies”). While the former reveal the artist’s profound knowledge of ancient Roman architecture and technology, the latter — particularly the views of cavernous, multi-level carceri, or prisons, he began in 1749 — express his remarkably fantastical creativity. The psychologically disturbing worlds of Piranesi’s powerful prison capricci had their deepest and longest-lasting influence on writers, inspiring such minds as the French Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarmé, and Marcel Proust; the American Edgar Allen Poe; and the twentieth-century English author and mystic Aldous Huxley. Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Vedute e Capricci features approximately fifteen of the artist’s large etchings of Italian vedute and capricci, ranging from topographical views of piazzas, gardens, and antique ruins and monuments — such as the Castel Sant’Angelo and the domed interior of Santa Costanza — to a pair of the impressive carceri that so inspired fertile imaginations for more than two centuries following.
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October 10, 2009 to January 3, 2010
Modernist Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada
Organized by the National Gallery of Canada
Today, we take it for granted that photography is considered an art form. This wasn’t always the case. At the turn of the 20th century and well into its first decades, debates were waged concerning photography’s purpose and status in the art world. It was a fascinating and formative period for the medium, and one that is beautifully traced in Modernist Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada. The exhibition, which features over 90 groundbreaking images, chronicles the origins of modern photography and includes many of the movement’s most transformative and iconic images.
Photographers working during the first half of the 20th century — including Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lisette Model, Margaret Bourke-White, Alexander Rodchenko, and André Kertész, to name only a few included in this exhibition — thrived on experimentation. Creating their images within the context of such art movements as Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, Expressionism, and Constructivism, the artists introduced a range of new techniques and subject matter while seeking to redefine the role of art in a world transformed by industrialization and war. As such, modern photography reflected an exciting change that was occurring generally in the art world; indeed, it was during this period that photography defined itself as an independent artistic form.
Tracing the evolution of photography from its documentary and pictorialist roots into an expressive and inventive art form, the exhibition presents urban, industrial, and city views translated into abstract forms as well as human subjects no longer represented as ideal standards of beauty, but rather as reflections of the photographer’s interest in formal and psychological expression. Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, reproduced here, is one such evocative image.
Presenting the work of over 65 international artists — including Hamilton-born Margaret Watkins (1884–1969) — the exhibition offers a unique time capsule of the making of photography in the modern era.
Media Partner: The Globe and Mail
Exhibition Partner: Food and Drink Fest (Hamilton)
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October 10, 2009 to January 3, 2010
Photography into Painting
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
Bouncing off the modernist photography exhibition on tour from the National Gallery, Photography into Painting provides a colourful and fun look at a later period, when artists of the 1970s and '80s were inspired to mimic on a large scale in painting or other media the exact overall detail offered by the photograph. Variously called Photorealism, Super Realism, or Hyper Realism, this intensely and unabashedly photographic approach originated in the United States in the 1960s yet continues to drive otherwise diverse artists — among them, two in the exhibition — Newfoundland painter Mary Pratt, known for her personal domestic subjects; and Spanish-born Canadian Cesar Santander, continually enamoured by the airbrushed, over-life-sized rendering of little tin toys and circus figurines.
Highlighting the start of Photorealism, Photography into Painting includes large graphics by major heroes of Pop art (Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol), the larger movement from which Photorealism sprung as an offshoot. Original Photorealists shared Pop’s embrace of commercial photographic imagery and techniques, and its detached replication of mass-produced objects and of contemporary urban or suburban structures and life. Four works in the exhibition are the creations of Edmonton-born painter John Hall, now resident in British Columbia. Hall’s flashy acrylic Cover and its accompanying three-dimensional model illustrate a departure from Photorealism’s typical replication of a photograph. Instead, Hall prepared early paintings like Cover by imaginatively selecting common objects and carefully arranging them in a glass-covered box, which then served him as maquette for his painted duplication on the two-dimensional surface of his canvas.
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September 26, 2009 to January 17, 2010
Jesse Boles: Crude Landscapes
Curated by Melissa Bennett and Sara Knelman
Jesse Boles graduated from Ryerson University in Photographic Studies in 2005 and has been gaining attention in the Toronto art scene and beyond for his decadent images of 21st-century industrial landscapes. Crude Landscapes is an ongoing series of large-scale photographs that depict industrial sites on the ports of Lake Ontario as well as in Alberta. Boles approaches these scenes as contemporary landscape, without judgement or agenda. His compositions consciously build upon the tradition of 19th-century landscape painting, and impress us with the sublime scale of modern industry. By photographing many of his scenes at night or dawn, when natural light is dwindling or gone, Boles also calls to mind cinematic scenes: his images often trace zones of industrial activity through the artificial light that illuminates the sites. The lengthy exposures needed to make the photographs in these conditions record the movement of light over the image, and evoke the experience of watching them over time.
Boles has been working in the Hamilton area to expand his Crude Landscapes series with new photographs shot through the spring and summer, 2009. The resulting new work is shown for the first time at the AGH this fall. In light of the recent developments at the steel factories in Hamilton, this exhibition offers a chance to reflect on the way that these landscapes contribute to the history and mythology of the city, and how their loss or diminishment will affect Hamilton’s rapidly changing identity.
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September 26, 2009 to January 17, 2010
Nature Observed: Dutch Painting at the Art Gallery of Hamilton
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
Nature Observed spotlights the Gallery’s collection of Dutch paintings, which for many years have constituted a modestly-sized yet excellent component of the institution’s European holdings. Several of the works came to the Gallery as offerings from historic AGH patrons, among them John Penman, Muriel Bostwick, Margaret Galbreaith, and Ruth McCuaig. Still others were purchases made respectively in the 1960s and ’80s through the generosity of the Gallery’s Women’s Committee and Volunteer Committee (the new name for the Women’s Committee in 1977).
The Dutch collection at the AGH splits into a broad balance between paintings from the two most celebrated periods and schools of Dutch art — the great Golden Age of the 17th century, and the later 19th century dominated by the Hague school. Both eras of Dutch art exhibit a distinctive naturalist sensibility and attention to everyday subject matter.
In the Dutch Golden Age, commercial wealth and pride in the newly emerging Protestant nation inspired artists to study and reflect the life around them with fresh eyes. Merchants replaced Church and nobility as artistic patrons, shifting the market toward genre (scenes of common life), landscape, and portraiture, and away from the history painting dominating the rest of Europe. Later, artists of the Hague school rediscovered inspiration from the naturalistic heights reached by their 17th-century forebears, combining this with the Realist influence of their own contemporaries in France, the Barbizon school. Nature Observed features several important artists of Holland’s Golden Age, such as Jan Verspronck, one of 17th-century Haarlem’s leading portraitists, and Jacob Willemsz. de Wet and Aert de Gelder, two of Rembrandt’s close followers. Among the Hague school artists are Anton Mauve (cousin-in-law and early teacher of Vincent van Gogh), Albert Neuhuys, and Willem Roelofs. Supplementing the paintings in the exhibition is a small group of etchings, including works by Rembrandt, one of the master printmakers of all time, and Adriaen van Ostade, the major Dutch etcher of his day next to Rembrandt.
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February 7, 2009 to February 14, 2010
Scultori Italiani
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
This selection of a dozen bronze sculptures installed in the David Braley and Nancy Gordon Sculpture Atrium highlights the expressive artistry and technical skill of six nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italian sculptors represented in the Gallery’s European collection. Most of the works come from the AGH Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Collection: several pieces each by Augusto Rivalta, Paolo Troubetzkoy, and Alfredo Pino, as well as one delightful head of a Street Urchin by Medardo Rosso, often called the only “Impressionist sculptor” in the history of art, and whose dynamic works particularly influenced his younger compatriots the Italian Futurists in the early decades of the twentieth century. Scultore Italiani also features two bronzes from the mid-twentieth century that have been part of the Gallery’s European holdings for many years — Pietro Consagra’s abstract Coro Impetuoso, and Giacomo Manzù’s beautiful Bust of Inge, which melds a lyrically classical mood with expressively primitive modeling.
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April 10, 2009 to April 5, 2010
The Shock of Seven: The Group and Their Contemporaries
Curated by Tobi Bruce
Experienced today, it’s difficult to imagine just how shocking the Group of Seven was to an audience largely accustomed to seeing representational landscapes, portraits and still lifes in the 1910s and 1920s. The Shock of Seven seeks to take the viewer back in time and provide the opportunity of seeing works by Group members within the context of their more conventional painting colleagues. Vibrant and modern works by members of the Group are set against the more traditional fare of such artists as Fred Haines, G. Horne Russell, G. Wyly Grier, and Hamilton’s Arthur Heming. It’s only in seeing the works of the Group of Seven hung alongside art being produced at the same time that we immediately understand just how avant-garde the Group really was.
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April 3, 2009 to April 11, 2010
Canadian Classics: Celebrated Works from the Collection
Curated by Tobi Bruce
The paintings and sculptures included in this semi-permanent installation are among the most prized of the Canadian collection. They are, in part, the works through which this collection is recognized and distinguished. Many are icons of Canadian art, paintings that have come to occupy a central and pivotal place in the story of Canadian art. Why? Because on the one hand, they are images that are familiar to us, and that we have seen again and again, in catalogues and textbooks, on cards and posters, and most importantly in exhibitions. On the other hand, it is the quality of these works that distinguishes them; these paintings and sculptures have come to represent the very best of an artist’s body of work, or a significant moment in their artistic development. Often, as with William Blair Bruce’s Phantom Hunter, the work is synonymous with the artist him or herself — the first image that comes to mind upon hearing the maker’s name.
This select gathering represents many of the highlights of our landscape and portrait collection, but it is only a small sampling of the greater depth and breadth that is the AGH collection of Canadian art.
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December 5, 2009 to April 11, 2010
Liquid of Rain and Rivers
Curated by Melissa Bennett
Water has been culturally mythologized for centuries. In this exhibition, Canadian artists Robert Burley, Paterson Ewen and Ron Martin have taken water as their subject matter, interpreted through diverse approaches. Ewen’s Red Sea is central to this exploration of the mythologies of water – while Ewen often animated landscapes through his paintings, his reference to a "red sea" adds an element of ambiguity. Is the artist commenting on the Red Sea theories, which include arguments based in religion, historical accounts and geology? Could this Red Sea represent environmental chaos or perhaps something more personal for the artist? Ewen created this work by gouging a large plywood surface, and applying paint and metal. It is a compelling example of Ewen’s practice, and a popular work from the AGH collection. Also on display is Ewen’s Rain in the Forest.
In stark contrast to Red Sea, Robert Burley’s photographs from the Great Lakes series are much calmer. The Great Lakes appear as immense bodies of water, visually comparable to seas. The surfaces of the water appear smooth due to Burley’s use of slow shutter speeds. Burley has lived in various places near the Great Lakes, and these lake views have become a constant in his life. As Burley writes, “this view of nothingness becomes as much about a state of mind as it is a manifestation of geography.”
Ron Martin worked with water in the early 1970s to extend its creative possibilities. As a painter would drip paint on a surface, he dripped water over paper to create wet areas. Instead of working additively to build up the surface, Martin altered the chemical composition of the surface itself by adding moisture to paper. Once dried, the results are minimalist abstractions.
Together, these works show innovations in media as well as diverse perceptions of the meanings and myths we associate with water.
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December 19, 2009 to April 11, 2010
Simon Glass: The Thirteen Attributes of God
Curated by Melissa Bennett
The Thirteen Attributes of God is a suite of thirteen gelatin silver photographs that were recently acquired by the AGH. The images are fragile in character, showing intimate views of lips, hands, and feathers in tandem with poignant imagery of dead birds. Glass overlays the images with biblical and liturgical Hebrew related to the holy names of God, found in the liturgy of the Jewish High Holidays. These attributes are traditionally invoked on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Like Hebrew text, the images are intended to be read from right to left. Glass presents an inviting glimpse into his own questions about language, faith, history and meaning. Glass’ work has been exhibited widely across Canada and Internationally. He is based in Toronto, and is represented by IndexG Gallery.
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The Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery
February 7 to March 22, 2009
Women’s Art Association of Hamilton 113th Annual Juried Exhibition
Founded in 1896, the Women’s Art Association of Hamilton is one of the city’s oldest arts organizations. The efforts of its earliest members were instrumental in establishing the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and the histories of the two institutions are closely intertwined. The strong relationship between the Gallery and the Women’s Art Association of Hamilton continues to this day, and the WAAH is a regular exhibitor in the AGH Jean & Ross Fischer Gallery. We are pleased to present in the WAA’s 113th Annual Juried Exhibition, a show that promises to continue the rich range of styles and subjects pursued by its new and longstanding artist members.
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March 28 to May 3, 2009
Eight Days in June
Hamilton’s Italian Community and WWII Internment
"We intend to declare our loyalty regardless of events that may come."
- Sam Scime, Italo-Canadian Club, June 2nd, 1940
"Play square with us and we’ll play square with you."
- Hamilton Mayor William Morrison, June 2nd, 1940
Organized to coincide with Vista Italia, this exhibition explores the strength, loyalty and character of Hamilton’s Italian community during one of the darkest periods in their – and this city’s – history.
At a large gathering on June 2nd, 1940, the leaders of Hamilton’s Italian community publicly pledged their allegiance to city and country, regardless of world events. In turn, civic and provincial officials reassured those assembled that their loyalty and patriotism would be acknowledged and respected.
Eight days later, Benito Mussolini declared war on the Allied Nations. Repercussions to the local Italian community were immediate and widespread, including the multi-year internment of a large number of Hamiltonians. This exhibition considers the events of that pivotal week and how the Italian community both survived and overcame the life-altering events of 1940 and beyond.
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May 7 to June 21, 2009
Follow Your Art IV: SAGE Student Exhibition
Curated by Pearl Van Geest
For the fourth annual Follow Your Art exhibition, the students of SAGE (Scholastics, Arts, Global Education) once again made a series of visits to the AGH exhibitions, seeing old favourites such as Kim Adams’ Bruegel-Bosch Bus and exploring new exhibitions such as Blood, Sweat and Tears: Labour in Art, Jean-Pierre Gauthier's Machines at Play and Christina Sealey and Richard Oddie's Living Spaces: Imagining Hamilton. Working in the studio on the third floor after these explorations, the students use printmaking, painting and assemblage to create a dynamic exhibition of interconnected works.
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June 27 to September 7, 2009
The Latvian Song Festival Art Exhibition
The Latvian Song Festival has been celebrated in Canada for over fifty years, continuing Latvian traditions in song and the arts. The festival exhibition of fine art is an intrinsic component of this cultural event. This juried exhibition of contemporary Canadian-Latvian artists’ work may be viewed as the echo and spirit of their past cultural heritage in modern-day Canada. Latvian-Canadians who settled in southwestern Ontario and other parts of Canada have generated an artistic community grateful for Canadian freedom and the many opportunities to contribute in our open society. This exhibition highlights the diversity and creativity of our artists.
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September 12 to November 8, 2009
Hamilton 365
Curated by Sara Knelman
The AGH is pleased to present Larry’s Strung’s epic photographic project, Hamilton 365. Canadian photographer Strung settled in Hamilton with his family at the end of 2006, after having spent four years in the UK. With life-long passions for photography and cycling, Strung set out to discover his new community with a camera and a bicycle. He conceived of Hamilton 365 in 2007, and began the project with a portrait of a mother and baby enjoying a snowy new year’s morning at Bayfront Park. Strung continued to shoot one new portrait every day for the entire year. He sometimes invited sitters into the project, and just as often rode around the city in search of an unexpected subject.
Strung’s portraits capture the beauty and diversity of the people of Hamilton with the photographer’s characteristic joy and empathy. The AGH is delighted to show the entire project in print for the first time. For more information about Hamilton 365 please visit the website www.hamilton365.com.
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November 14, 2009 to January 24, 2010
Integration: The Society of Canadian Artists
The AGH is pleased to welcome an Elected Members’ Show by the Society of Canadian Artists, open to the public
for two months in the Gallery’s Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery, which is dedicated to exhibitions relating to the
community or by area arts groups. A national, not-for-profit organization committed to the promotion of the
visual arts, the Society of Canadian Artists (SCA) began in 1957 when a group of Toronto artists formed the Society
of Co-operative Artists. In 1972 the organization expanded its vision to a national level, receiving its charter and
non-profit status and becoming the Society of Canadian Artists.
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