View List of 2011 Acquisitions

2010/2011 ACQUISITIONS

From July 2010 to June 2011, the Vancouver Art Gallery acquired 167 artworks through purchase and donation, bringing the total number of works in the collection to 10,170.

Contemporary art continues to be a strong focus of the Gallery’s acquisition program, with significant purchases of work by local artists for the collection. Included was a monumental work by Geoffrey Farmer, The Surgeon and the Photographer, which was made possible through the contributions of the Jean MacMillan Southam Major Art Purchase Fund, Phil Lind, the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisitions Assistance Program and The Michael O’Brian Family Foundation. With the purchase of fourteen photographs, collages and digital collages by Roy Arden, the Gallery now has the most important institutional collection of the artist’s work worldwide. Major new sculptural installations were also acquired, including The Men of My Family by Brian Jungen and Mouthful by Liz Magor. The Old Future by Vancouver artist Elizabeth McIntosh, the first work by the artist to enter the Gallery’s collection, was purchased through the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisitions Assistance Program. The Audain Emerging Artists Acquisition Fund provided for the purchase of two works by Evan Lee included in the 2010 exhibition In Dialogue with Carr: Douglas Coupland, Evan Lee, Liz Magor, Marianne Nicolson.

Several other important contemporary artworks were donated for the Gallery’s collection. BMO Financial Group gifted Rodney Graham’s Artist’s Model Posing for “The Old Bugler, Among the Fallen, Battle of Beaune-Roland 1870” in the Studio of an Unknown Military Painter, Paris 1885, the first photographic lightbox by the artist to be acquired by the Gallery. Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa donated a second lightbox by Graham, Nautical Scene with Loudhailer, as well as a large-scale painting by Etienne Zack titled Innerworks. Alison and Alan Schwartz continued their support of the Gallery’s collection with donations of work by Douglas Gordon and Robert Therrien. Rojeanne and Jim Allworth donated Jerry Pethick’s major sculpture Semaphore Goya, Hanny and Najet Hassan contributed a large-scale installation by Jamelie Hassan, and Richard Wozny donated a painting by emerging artist A.S. Dhillon.

Several artists made donations of their own work, including Roy Arden, Eric Deis, Michael Drebert, Anthony Hernandez, Ann Kipling, Liz Magor, Scott McFarland, Reece Terris, Bill Vazan and O Zhang. Rebecca Belmore gifted her work Wild as part of a performance held in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery entitled Worth (Statement of Defence). Lawrence Weiner contributed a number of works to augment the Gallery’s complete holdings of the artist’s posters.

The Vancouver Art Gallery also continued to increase its important holdings of historical and contemporary photography. The Jean MacMillan Southam Art Acquisition Endowment Fund made the purchase of ten photographs by local historical photographer John Vanderpant possible. The Gallery’s photography collection was significantly enhanced by donations from Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft, whose gifts included iconic works by Robert Frank and Roman Vishniac. Other donations included Aaron Milrad’s contribution of twelve photographs from Larry Fink’s The Oscar Photographs, Dr.Paul Marks’ gift of two self-portraits by John Coplans, Vanessa Sorenson’s donation of a photographic installation by Evan Lee, Bill Jeffries’ contribution of five historical and contemporary works, and Ann and Marshall Webb’s donation of two early works by Stan Douglas.

Other donations of work by British Columbia artists included four paintings by Lionel Thomas and two early works by Ian Wallace from CAUSA (Collective for Advanced and United Studies in the Visual Arts), five works by Jack Shadbolt from Carole Jutte, and a stonecut print by Lucy Quinnuayuak from Margaret Prang. Letia M. Richardon gifted an Irene Hoffar Reid painting and a sculpture, drawing and painting by Gathie Falk.

The Gallery’s collection of historical works expanded through anonymous gifts of paintings by Cornelius Krieghoff and Robert Pilot. The Anne Eliza Winn Trust, established in 2009 and dedicated to the purchase of works by the original members of the Group of Seven, funded the acquisition of Sketch Painted in Santa Fe, New Mexico by Lawren Harris. The work is the primary study for Harris’s Composition No.1, a part of the Gallery’s collection. Through the generosity of the Audain Foundation, Fire Ranger’s Look-out by Frederick Horsman Varley was purchased; Varley painted the work on Vancouver’s North Shore during his time in British Columbia. The Vancouver Art Gallery extends its sincere appreciation to all donors for their tremendous support in furthering the growth of the Gallery’s important permanent collection.