View List of 2012 Acquisitions

2011/2012 ACQUISITIONS

From July 2011 to June 2012, the Vancouver Art Gallery acquired 100 artworks through purchase and donation, bringing the total number of works in the collection to 10,270 works.

The Gallery is privileged to house the most significant institutional holdings of internationally renowned Vancouver artists and supplemented these collections with major purchases in 2011–2012. Following the success of Ken Lum’s 2011 solo exhibition, the organization purchased two early video works, as well as Photo Mirror: Spiderweb and the large-scale Mirror Maze with 12 Signs of Depression. With funds provided by the Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund, the Jean MacMillan Southam Art Acquisition Endowment Fund and funds donated by Phil Lind and Wesgroup Properties, the Gallery also purchased a recent photograph by Jeff Wall titled Vancouver, 7 Dec. 2009. Ivan Sayers, costume historian, lectures at the University Women’s Club. Virginia Newton-Moss wears a British ensemble c.1910, from Sayers’ collection. Through the generosity of Arts Partners in Creative Development, the Gallery commissioned two major new paintings by Ian Wallace, which are part of his ongoing At the Crosswalk series. In addition to these purchases of artworks by local artists, Fill in the Sea, a monumental installation by Beijing-based artist Song Dong comprised of 168 photographs, was also acquired.

Contemporary art continues to be a strong focus of the Gallery’s acquisition program with significant purchases of work by local emerging artists Jeremy Hof, Jeremy Shaw and Isabelle Pauwels. These acquisitions were generously funded by proceeds from the Audain Emerging Artists Acquisition Fund and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program. Also purchased were three digital collages by emerging Vancouverbased artist Elizabeth Zvonar.

Other significant works entered the collection by way of donation. In honour of Kathleen Bartels’ ten-year anniversary as the director of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Dr.Rodrigo Restrepo donated a painting by Kent Monkman, while supporters Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft marked the event with donation of a work by Scott McFarland, among their many other contributions of art during the year. The Gallery also received gifts of paintings, including two early oil on panels by Angela Grossmann from donors Pamela Boles and Coleen and Howard Nemtin, a work called Untitled (flower) by Matthew Brown from Wil Aballe, as well as a Stanley Cosgrove landscape from Patrick and Joan Boyle. The Audain Foundation donated a recent work by Vancouver artist Landon Mackenzie and Yoshiko Karasawa and Michael Audain generously gifted the monumental canvas by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun Burying Another Face of Racism on First Nations Soil. The Gallery’s first ceramic work by Laura Wee Láy Láq was received from Meirion Cynog Evans and prints by Leonard Hutchinson and Pudlo Pudlat from Ken Dent were also acquired. CAUSA (Collective for Advanced and United Studies in the Visual Arts) donated two drawings by Lionel Thomas and a suite of early photographs Night Jumps by local practitioner Robert Kleyn. A remarkable Tzunokwa mask by Tony Hunt Jr. was gifted by Jay Stewart and Peter MacNair. Monty Cooper gave drawings by Sara Mameni, a sculpture by Drue Langlois, as well as ten drawings by the Royal Art Lodge, with a generous promised gift of 40 additional drawings in the years to come.

The Gallery’s holdings of historical Canadian art was greatly enhanced with gifts of works by Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith, Paul Peel, Otto Reinhold Jacobi and Homer Watson, all from an anonymous donor. Bon Echo, Ontario, 1924, an important landscape by A.Y. Jackson, was purchased with funds from an anonymous donor and Uno Langmann.

Other significant promised gifts for the Gallery’s permanent collection include seven photographs by Mike Grill from the artist, one sculpture by Glenn Lewis from Stuart and Della McLaughlin, a large-scale work from Ken Lum’s Portrait-Attribute series from Jane Irwin and Ross Hill, two photographs by Sam Taylor-Wood from Michael O’Brian and six photographs by John Vanderpant from the Vanderpant Collection. Bequests to the collection include paintings by William Kurelek and Todd Tedeschini from the Estate of Dr.George Griffiths and a painting by Gathie Falk from the Estate of Kitty Heller.

The Gallery is especially grateful to artists who made donations of their own work, including Robert Davidson, Adam Harrison, Carol Itter, Dion Kliner, Sara Mameni, Jason McLean, Heather and Ivan Morison, Alex Morrison, Richard E. Prince, Marina Roy and Takao Tanabe. Several gifts of works were also made by Lawrence Weiner to augment the Gallery’s complete holdings of his posters.

The Vancouver Art Gallery would like to thank all donors of art for their overwhelming support and generosity in providing for the growth of the permanent collection.