Welcome to the University of Victoria Art Collections
Current
May 21 to August 12, 2013 How are interpretations of literature changing in a digital age? Using James Joyce's Ulysses as its tutor text, this student-curated exhibit engages that very question, with an emphasis on time, place, computation, and speculation. The exhibit brings together traditional physical materials from the University's Special Collections and the University of Victoria Art Collections with 3D replications of objects, as well as a digital environment. Guided by the question of self-remediation –how do we see ourselves as others see us– the exhibit places Ulysses in its contemporary context and engages its long, often unanticipated afterlife. Audiences are invited to interact with many of the curated materials. Image: James Joyce in "Shakespeare and Co." bookshop, Gisèle Freund |
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The Long Now of Ulysses: Curating Literature after the Internet
May 8 to June 15, 2013 Guest curated by Dr. Andrea Walsh (Anthropology) and Dr. Robina Thomas (Social Work). Artists' Reception: Saturday, May 25, 2013, 1 - 3 pm. The vibrant and powerful paintings in this exhibition were created by children who attended the Alberni Indian Residential School in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The works were created in an extra-curricular art class run by artist Robert Aller. Over 50 years later, residential school survivors who attended the school and created these paintings are working together with UVIC faculty and staff to document the role of art in residential schools through individual stories and works of art. The paintings in this exhibition provide an exceptional and rare opportunity to witness the power of children's creativity during residential schooling, when their voices were actively silenced by assimilationist government policies. The exhibition asks viewers to consider the role of this art today at a time when Canada is attempting reconciliation around this history with Indigenous peoples. Image: Phyllis Tate (1959) |
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To Reunite To Honour To Witness
March 13 to June 15, 2013 Creating Con[text] activates works of art in in the University of Victoria’s Michael Williams Bequest Collection through the oral history research of Dr. Carolyn Butler Palmer and her graduate students. Over the course of a number of years Dr. Butler Palmer and her students have gathered an extensive array of interviews with people associated with the late downtown businessman and art supporter Michael Collard Williams and the artists he collected. Featuring paintings by Angela Grossman, Jack Shadbolt and Emily Carr, eminent British Columbia painters whose careers span more than a century into present day, the exhibition allows the stories of artists, dealers, collectors, and viewers to infuse the works of art with more deeply understood meaning. The online compenent, including audio, can be found at http://pnwartists.ca/. Image: Biomorphic, Jack Shadbolt (1988) |
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Creating Con[text]Online
The Karl Spreitz Film Collection at the University of Victoria consists of more than 100 reels of 16mm film in various stages of production. Many of these films were produced by Spreitz in collaboration with other artists and friends such as Colin Browne, Vicky Husband, Anne Mayhew, Michael Morris and Herbert Siebner and are both personal and documentary in nature. Covering a period of more than three decades, the content of the films describe the working process of local artists, historic events, and political and environmental issues. The collection is of tremendous historic value both in terms of film production in British Columbia, subject matter, and as a partial record of Spreitz’s career. Image: Karl location scouting for BC Film Commission in Stewart, BC. |
Museums and other educational institutions are often seen as sites of privileged knowledge production, spaces that have often excluded minority perspectives and realities. This exhibition presents a selection of prints from the George and Christiane Smyth and Vincent Rickard Northwest Coast Print collection that focus on representations of place and Indigenous knowledge production. The perspectives represented by these artists challenge the hegemonic practices of institutions, such as museums, by positioning the artists as the ethnographic authorities on their cultural expressions and knowledge. Image: Kankulanukw Francis Dick (1989) |
As part of the renovations completed in the Fall of 2011, and with the generosity of George and Christiane Smyth, the Cornett Building has become an established centre for Coast Salish art. By displaying 26 artworks created by six Coast Salish artists, the University of Victoria and the Faculty of Social Sciences hopes to honour the history, customs, and culture of the Coast Salish, while inspiring student, faculty, and the greater community. This installation has been named Salish Reflections for two reasons. Firstly, lessLIE’s piece Reflections has been used to decorate all exterior doors of Cornett, so it seemed fit to incorporate this important work even further. Secondly, the aim of the installation is to become more familiar with and reflect upon the Coast Salish art of our region. This website was created to be a destination for those wishing to learn more about Coast Salish peoples and their art. Image: Symphony of Butterflies, Susan Point (2005) |
This series of exhibitions and publication projects explores the relationships, personalities and projects contributing to the development of a regional modernist aesthetic in the post-war Victoria urban landscape (1939–2013). It celebrates and coincides with celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of the City of Victoria (2012) and 50th anniversary of the founding of the University of Victoria at its Gordon Head Campus. Image: Bay Parkade Entry, Hubert Norbury (1960) |
Upcoming
June 19 to October 26, 2013 This exhibition presents an overview of the University of Victoria's Visual Arts department from its earliest days as a breakaway department from the Faculty of Education to the individually and collectively earned reputations for innovation in painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and sculpture. Eighteen artists who were also appointed faculty members are included in this exhibition including John Dobereiner, Donald Harvey, Pat Martin Bates, Gwen Curry, Douglas Morton, Roland Brener, Mowry Baden and Fred Douglas. Primarily drawing on work from the university's permanent collection, this exhibition reflects a range of media and groundbreaking artistic practice. Image: Black Diamond, Donald Harvey (1964) |
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Core Samples: Visual Arts Faculty 1966-1986
August 24, 2013, 1:30 pm Governor General's Award winner Mowry Baden will speak about his artistic practice during his tenure in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Victoria and reference the work of colleagues Fred Douglas and Roland Brener, with whom he worked closely during the 1980s and 90s. Baden is considered a pioneer of body art and together with Brener, continually challenges the existing order of contemporary sculpture in Canada. In this talk, Baden will emphasize the processional aspect of his sculpture, focusing on the works featured in the exhibition. Part of the Integrate Arts Festival. Image: Hudson Street Beet, Mowry Baden (1984) |
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Artist's Talk: Mowry Baden
November 22, 2013, to March 14, 2014 Since its inception, the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild has maintained an ambitious exhibition programme, circulating shows across Canada and the United States and participating in local book arts events. This sixth juried travelling exhibition of members' work marks CBBAG's 30th anniversary. Image: Fractured Terrain, Karen Kunc |
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Art of the Book
October 30, 2013, to January 12, 2014 This exhibition presents the recent work of the artists teaching in the Faculty of Visual Arts of the University of Victoria. The seven faculty members (Daniel Laskarin, Sandra Meigs, Robert Youds, Vikky Alexander, Lynda Gammon, Jennifer Stillwell, and Paul Walde) are all mid-career and senior artists with national and international careers. Each artist will be represented by works characteristic of his or her current practice. All relate to the theme of the paradox, which is implicit in our physical and psychic experience of art. Image: In the Highest Room, Sandra Meigs |
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ParadoxEvents
June 13, 2013, 7:30 - 9:00 pm Curators Robina Thomas and Andrea Walsh will speak on the process undertaken to reunite residential school survivors with the artwork they produced as children at the Alberni Indian Residential School in the 1950s and 60s and what this artwork means in the context of healing and reconciliation. Seating is limited. Doors will open at 7:00 pm to allow visitors to view the exhibition prior to the talk. Image: Phyllis Tate (1959) |
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August 24, 2013, 1:30 pm Governor General's Award winner Mowry Baden will speak about his artistic practice during his tenure in the department of Visual Arts at the University of Victoria and reference the work of colleagues Fred Douglas and Roland Brener, with whom he worked closely during the 1980s and 90s. Baden is considered a pioneer of body art and together with Brener continually challenged the existing order of contemporary sculpture in Canada. In this talk Baden will emphasize the processional aspect of his sculpture, focusing on the works featured in the exhibition. Part of the Integrate Arts Festival. Image: Hudson Street Beet, Mowry Baden (1984) |
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Integrate Arts Festival August 23-24, 2013 The Integrate Art Society strives to enhance the provincial and national awareness of the thriving arts community in Victoria, BC. Through the Integrate Arts Festival, IAS will develop a unified creative collective which is comprised of local artists, museums, artist-run centres and public and commercial art galleries. It is our hope that by combining these forces, Victoria will gain a celebrated reputation as an arts destination. In order to integrate different elements of the art world, the Festival will invite a diverse range of artists including visual artists, musicians, guerilla artists, performance artists, theatre actors, film directors, photographers and more. The purpose of the Integrate Arts Festival is to inspire the community, offer artists the chance to share their work, provide a volunteer opportunity for students and art lovers, and to strengthen the presence and awareness of the arts in Victoria, BC. This year's event will include an opening celebration on Friday August 23rd in the evening, a mass art crawl downtown on the same night including gallery stops, community venue hotspots, indoor and outdoor performances, street art and more. On August 24th we hope for daytime arts activities in the gallery spaces and a finale celebration in the evening. |
News
George Norris Obituary 
Norris’ work is also present on the University of Victoria and University of Calgary campuses. Norris’ Untitled sculpture at the University of Calgary is a celebrated piece. Although Norris preferred the work to speak for itself, without a descriptive title, it is popularly called The Prairie Chicken by the student body, a title that arose from a statement Norris made about the sculpture. UBC houses the pieces Mother and Child, Man About to Plant Alfalfa, and an Untitled decorative wall on the Metallurgy Building. Norris also played a significant role in the preparatory casting and carving of Bill Reid’s The Raven and the First Men at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. His other public art works can be seen across the West Coast, including pieces in Vancouver, Williams Lake, Nanaimo, and Esquimalt. Norris is also represented in Victoria in the courtyard of the main branch of the Victoria Public Library, which holds his Dynamic Mobile Steel Sculpture. Born in Victoria in 1928, Norris studied at the Vancouver School of Art, and worked under Croatian/American sculptor Ivan Mestrovic in his studio in Syracuse, NY. Of special interest to Victoria, Mestrovic had a profound influence on Victoria sculptor Katharine Maltwood, whose comprehensive art collection was donated to the University of Victoria upon her death. Norris was a full time sculptor from 1958 through 1983, and retired to Shawnigan Lake. Norris, who passed away on March 12, 2013, should be recognized and celebrated as an influential and valuable Canadian artist. Margaret Weller, Curatorial Assistant |
Main locations
Maltwood Prints and Drawings Gallery at the McPherson Library
Located
on the lower floor of the
McPherson library, adjacent Special Collections
Legacy
Art Gallery
Wednesday - Saturday, 10 am - 4 pm
The Legacy Art Gallery has undergone renovations to transform itself into the University of Victoria’s primary gallery space.
Links of Interest
- Artefacts Canada
- BC Museums Association
- Commonwealth Association of Museums
- Canadian Conservation Institute
- Canadian Heritage Information Network
- Canadian Museums Association
- International Council of Museums
- University Centre Farquhar Auditorium
- UVic Cultural Property Community Research
- Art Openings
