The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Napoleon

Thu, 9 Feb 2012 16:45:28 EDT

Thanks to Ben Weider's major gift of his Napoleonic collection, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts inaugurated galleries devoted to Napoleon and to the First Empire on October 23, 2008. Mr. Weider was committed to having this outstanding collection remain in Montreal. It will henceforth be presented at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where it will enrich the Museum's collection and Canadian heritage as a whole. These galleries feature a collection of a hundred works and objects, some rare and unique, associated with Napoleon and the arts under the First Empire. Other gifts and loans of works related to this period, in particular objects from the collections of the Honourable Serge Joyal, p.c., o.c., Paul G. Desmarais and Power Corporation of Canada, Roger Prigent, and Élaine Bédard and Alexandre de Bothuri Bàthory, are also on display. These galleries will present one of the leading collections devoted to Napoleon in North America.

Resolute Bay - The Daytime Journey in the Night

Thu, 9 Feb 2012 16:45:28 EDT

Since their first stay in Resolute Bay in the summer of 2004, Louis Couturier and Jacky Georges Lafargue have maintained a unique artistic dialogue with the hamlet's community, of which this exhibition is the latest expression. Through the use of documentation, interviews, photography and land surveys, the artists have helped members of this remote community stamped by history give expression to the reality of their lives. In the winter of 2006, they set up in a public space in Resolute Bay ahuge outdoor screen made of snow upon which they projected images, taken in 2004, of the village's long summer days. The work on view at the Museum is the counterpart to that first presentation, since it brings Resolute Bay life right into the heart of an urban society. It's sculptural component is entitled Qausuittuq, the Inuit name for Resolute Bay, which means the “place with no dawn.” The qamutiik* (sled) comes from Inukjuak in Quebec's Nunavik region, just like the first inhabitants of Resolute Bay. It is loaded with twenty-four crates containing pictures of Qausuittuq.

Dorothea Rockburne : In My Mind's Eye

Thu, 9 Feb 2012 16:45:28 EDT

This retrospective featuring fifty of Dorothea Rockburne's works will reveal the development of a Montreal artist’s abstraction abroad.

Lyonel Feininger: From Manhattan to the Bauhaus

Thu, 9 Feb 2012 16:45:28 EDT

This exhibition, the first major retrospective devoted to Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) in North America in almost fifty years, will offer a comprehensive panorama of the oeuvre of this American artist of German descent: oils, watercolours, woodcuts, political cartoons, playful sculptures and little-known photographs. His animated and colourful paintings of the 1910s reveal his early work as a caricaturist.

Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956),
Yellow Street II,
1918,
oil on canvas,
95 x 86.1 cm.
MMFA, purchase, gift of The Maxwell Cummings Family Foundation, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Volunteer Association,John G. McConnell, C.B.E., Mr. and Mrs. A. Murray Vaughan, Harold Lawson Bequest, and Horsley and Annie Townsend Bequest.
© The Lyonel Feininger Family LLC / SODRAC (2012)

Selections from the Museum�s Collection of European Master Drawings

Thu, 9 Feb 2012 16:45:28 EDT

Tom Wesselmann

Thu, 9 Feb 2012 16:45:28 EDT

Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) is one of the three great American Pop artists. And yet, of all the major American artists of his generation initially associated with the Pop Art movement, Wesselmann is the only one who has not been the subject of a major retrospective.

Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004),
Sunset Nude with Matisse Odalisque,
2003, oil on canvas, 120 x 100 in.
The Estate of Tom Wesselmann.
© Estate of Tom Wesselmann / SODRAC, Montréal / VAGA, New York (2011)

A History of Impressionism

Thu, 9 Feb 2012 16:45:28 EDT

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute holds one of the greatest collections of French Impressionism in North America.

Claude Monet (1840-1926),
Geese in the Brook,
1874,
Oil on canvas,
73.7 x 60 cm.
© Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Unveils the Architecture of its New Pavilion of Quebec and Canadian Art and its New Concert Hall

Wed,20 Apr 2011 16:45:28 EDT

Montreal, April 20, 2011 – After many months of work, construction of the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion of Quebec and Canadian Art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) and restoration of the 1894 heritage church, which has been converted to a 444-seat concert hall, have been completed. Both the schedule and the budget have been respected. The Museum's curators, led by Nathalie Bondil, the MMFA's Director and Chief Curator, will soon begin the task of installing the 600 works in the six new floors. The new pavilion will open to the public this fall.

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk

Wed,30 Mar 2011 16:45:28 EDT

Montreal, March 30, 2011 – From June 17 to October 2, 2011, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) will present The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, the first exhibition devoted to the celebrated French couturier who launched his first prêt‐à‐porter collection in 1976 and founded his own couture house in 1997. Dubbed fashion’s enfant terrible by the press from the time of his first runway shows in the 1970s, Jean Paul Gaultier is indisputably one of the most important fashion designers of recent decades.

ROUGE CABARET

Thu, 8 Jul 2010 16:45:28 EDT

From September 24, 2010, to January 2, 2011, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts will be presenting ROUGE CABARET: The Terrifying and Beautiful World of Otto Dix, the first North American exhibition devoted to Otto Dix (1891-1969), one of the twentieth century’s most important German painters. A keen observer of the world, which he viewed as “terrifying and beautiful,” Otto Dix leaves no one indifferent. Some 220 works, including about forty rare and fragile paintings, many of them painted in tempera on wood panels, large watercolours and powerful prints, illustrate his acerbic yet moving vision of the eventful era in which he lived, from World War I to World War II, from the Germany of the Weimar Republic to the rise of the Third Reich. Several complete series of prints will also be on display, including the outstanding “War” series (1924).

Drive End

Wed,16 Jun 2010 16:45:28 EDT

From June 17 to September 19, 2010, in the Contemporary Art Square on Level S2 of the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts will present Drive End, a remarkable photographic project by Martin Beauregard. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in a museum. Admission to the exhibition is free at all times.

Studio Glass

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 16:45:28 EDT

An exceptional gift of one hundred glass sculptures recently enriched the Museum’s Department of Decorative Arts, thanks to the generosity of Anna and Joe Mendel, long-standing friends of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Drawn to glass by its intrinsic properties and expressive potential, these collectors wished to share their enthusiasm for the Studio Glass Movement with Museum visitors. The Mendel Collection is the only one of its kind in Canada, ranking with those of the leading American connoisseurs who have made glass their passion. A first selection of nineteen artworks from the Mendel Collection, The Body in Glass, will be presented in a new gallery within the Museum’s permanent collection.

The Inspiria collection of necklaces

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 16:45:28 EDT

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is presenting, in a premiere, a spectacular private collection of twenty exceptional pieces of jewellery, the fruit of a collaboration between the Cirque du Soleil and Boucheron, one of the most distinguished firms in the Place Vendôme, Paris.

Pierre Dorion

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 16:45:28 EDT

From March 4 to May 30, 2010, The Museum will present, in the new galleries of contemporary art, Pierre Dorion, Painting and Photography. For his very first exhibition in a Montreal museum, the Montreal painter has opted to present 15 canvases (2009-2010) alongside with some 40 archival photographs on which they are based. Visitors will discover that photograpy, although a little-known aspect of Dorion's oeuvre, actually plays a crucial role in the devlopement of his work.

"WE WANT MILES"

Tue,16 Feb 2010 16:45:28 EDT

With this exhibition, the Museum pays tribute to Miles Davis (1926-1991), one of the twentieth century’s greatest musicians. The multimedia retrospective (musical excerpts, film and documentary clips, drawings by Miles Davis; paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Mati Klarwein; photographs by Annie Leibovitz and Irving Penn; costumes, musical instruments and scores lent by the Davis family, etc.) recalls the highlights of his life and career, including his memorable concerts in Montreal.

Tiffany glass : a passion for colour

Tue, 9 Feb 2010 16:45:28 EDT

Louis C. Tiffany (1848-1933) is famous for the original and spectacular effectsof colour and light that he achieved in his blown vases, stained glass windows and lamps. A Canadian first, this exhibition focusses on Tiffany's outstanding contribution to design and the technology of glass.

J. W. Waterhouse. Garden of Enchantmnent

Mon,27 Jul 2009 16:45:28 EDT

From October 1, 2009, to February 7, 2010, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts will host the largest-ever retrospective of works by the celebrated British artist John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). J. W. Waterhouse: Garden of Enchantment is the first large-scale monographic exhibition on Waterhouse’s work since 1978 and the first to feature his entire artistic career. This retrospective features some eighty paintings that are among the finest and most spectacular of the artist’s production, on loan from public and private collections in Australia, England, Ireland, Taiwan, the United States and Canada.