Current Exhibitions 
|
GALLERY LEVEL ONE
Ticketed Admission applies to Level One exhibitions.
AGH Members receive Free Admission to all exhibitions.
|
Modernist Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada
Organized by the National Gallery of Canada
On view October 10, 2009 to January 3, 2010
|
|
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: |
 |
| Exhibition Partner: |
 |
|
BACK TO TOP |
Jesse Boles: Crude Landscapes
On view September 26, 2009 to January 17, 2010
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.
|
BACK TO TOP |
Photography into Painting
On view October 10, 2009 to January 3, 2010
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.
|
BACK TO TOP |
Nature Observed: Dutch Painting at the Art Gallery of Hamilton
On view September 26, 2009 to January 17, 2010
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.
|
BACK TO TOP |
|
William Blair Bruce Memorial Donation
On permanent display
A salon-style hanging of the entire Bruce Memorial Donation of 1914 signals the beginning of the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Upon the premature death in 1906 of Hamilton-born William Blair Bruce, his widow, sculptor Caroline Benedicks-Bruce, his father William and his sister Bell Bruce-Walkden bequeathed twenty-nine of his paintings to the city, with the proviso that a properly equipped art gallery be established to house and present the collection. When the Gallery opened its doors for the first time in June of 1914, the Bruce Memorial Collection was the permanent collection. Presented here in its entirety, the Bruce Collection continues to be an appropriate touchstone. As an important nineteenth-century Hamiltonian who trained and worked abroad and exhibited both nationally and internationally, Bruce’s skill and activities reflect the scope and nature of Hamilton’s permanent collection: regional, national and international in scope, tracing the efforts and activities of artists who have exerted an impact on the visual arts past and present.
|
BACK TO TOP |
GALLERY LEVEL TWO
Free admission courtesy of Orlick Industries.
|
Il bellissimo panorama: Views of Italy
On view December 13, 2008 to November 22, 2009
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 |
|
BACK TO TOP |
Scultori Italiani
On view February 7, 2009 to February 14, 2010
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.
|
BACK TO TOP |
Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Vedute E Capricci
On view March 28 to December 13, 2009
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.
|
BACK TO TOP |
The Shock of Seven: The Group and Their Contemporaries
On view April 10, 2009 to April 5, 2010
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.
|
BACK TO TOP |
Canadian Classics: Celebrated Works from the Collection
On view April 3, 2009 to April 11, 2010
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.
|
BACK TO TOP |
Kim Adams' Bruegel-Bosch Bus
On permanent display
Repeatedly in his work, Canadian artist Kim Adams has explored the patterns of a mobile society, creating works of art that are eccentric hybrids of the readymade. Blending humour, satire and seriousness, he builds “worlds” as a means of social critique. Adams’ installations exist comfortably in the space that divides life and art. His works have been presented in two very different social worlds: in a densely social environment such as a park or street and in a museum setting like the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Neither setting is privileged.
A magnificent visual masterpiece, Bruegel-Bosch Bus consists of a 1960 Volkswagon that appears to pull a post-industrial universe displaying a cornucopia of fantastic and seductive worlds that play with our senses. It was produced over a 7-year span. This futuristic diorama is a permanent fixture in the AGH Sculpture Atrium overlooking the Irving Zucker Sculpture Garden, past Hamilton City Hall and the Niagara Escarpment. Reminiscent of a previous installation by Adams titled Earth Wagons that presented a micro-model North American society fixed on leisure and entertainment, the Breugel-Bosch Bus encapsulates the next whole world picture, a world in which reality and unreality, logic and fantasy, banality and sublimation of existence, form an inexplicable unity. This ‘bus’ is a Kubrickesque megalopolis made of icons symptomatic in present society and draws upon urban fantasies, phantasmagoric, post-apocalyptic landscapes, and a plethora of different times and cultures. Buildings from different epochs are aligned side by side and space becomes an imaginary territory where chaos prevails.
|
BACK TO TOP |
The Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery
Free admission courtesy of Orlick Industries.
|
Integration: The Society of Canadian Artists
On view November 14, 2009 to January 24, 2010
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.
|
*Please note that as a multipurpose space, the Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery is an area where photography is allowed by patrons and members of the public in accordance with the AGH Photography Policy. Click here for the Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery Information Package.
Also, the Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery is a space that can be rented for private or corporate functions and therefore may be unavailable for viewing by the public. We apologize for any inconvenience. If you are interested in viewing this space specifically, please call ahead to ensure the exhibition installed is available at 905-527-6610.
|
BACK TO TOP |
AGH Entrance Foyer
|
Pascal Grandmaison: New Acquisitions
On view Fall 2009
The AGH strives to maintain the highest integrity for the collection through acquisition of pivotal works by contemporary artists, regional and national, that continue to exert a profound impact on Canada’s cultural landscape. It is with great pleasure that we present two recent acquisitions by Pascal Grandmaison: Verre 8 and Verre 9, both created in 2004.
For his Verre series, the Montreal-based Grandmaison asked individuals – mainly friends and acquaintances – to pose in his studio while holding a sheet of glass, like a dislodged window pane, in front of them. The models generally look down, away from the viewer. Their averted gazes and the barrier created by the glass create a sense of containment within the picture plane, and an exciting tension between the viewer and the image. The images from this series first brought international acclaim to Grandmaison, and are a foundation for the artist’s ongoing investigations of the barrier between frame and subject.
Grandmaison has consistently demonstrated a rigorous approach to his art-making, a commitment to innovation in photographic and film media, and an unyielding sense of direction as he expands his practice. The AGH is delighted to have the opportunity to collect three key works from two distinct periods of his production: Verre 8 and Verre 9, on view on the main entrance wall, as well as Increasingly Empty Forms: 1928-1999, 2008. All three works were on view in a recent exhibition at the AGH, Pascal Grandmaison: Double Take (September 27, 2008 to January 5, 2009). A full colour catalogue with curatorial essays, created in collaboration with the Carleton University Art Gallery, is now available.
|
BACK TO TOP |
|
 |
 |
|
There are many events happening around the Gallery. Find out what there is to do and see organized by date.
> Launch calendar
Interested in learning more about Gallery programmes? Keep yourself informed with our monthly e-newsletter.
> Sign-up now
| |
