Agnes Etherington Art Centre
Encyclopedia
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Originally a First Nations settlement called "Katarowki," , growing European exploration in the 17th Century made it an important trading post...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and is operated by Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
. The centre holds 12-15 exhibitions annually, as well as artists' talks and performances, public lectures, symposia, workshops, and school and family programs. Although primarily funded through the university, the Gallery Association raises awareness of and funds for the gallery through the activities of its volunteer committees, the Gallery Shop and the Art Rental & Sales Gallery. The Art Centre belongs to the Ontario Association of Art Galleries
Ontario Association of Art Galleries
The Ontario Association of Art Galleries was established in 1968 to encourage development of public art galleries, art museums, community galleries and related visual arts organizations in Ontario, Canada. It was incorporated in Ontario in 1970, and registered as a charitable organization...
reciprocal program, through which members of participating galleries receive free admission to all galleries. The gallery has received a number of awards for its exhibitions from the Canada Council
Canada Council
The Canada Council for the Arts, commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown Corporation established in 1957 to act as an arts council of the government of Canada, created to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts. It funds Canadian artists and...
, Ontario Association of Art Galleries
Ontario Association of Art Galleries
The Ontario Association of Art Galleries was established in 1968 to encourage development of public art galleries, art museums, community galleries and related visual arts organizations in Ontario, Canada. It was incorporated in Ontario in 1970, and registered as a charitable organization...
and others.
History
The Art Centre has its roots in the Kingston Art and Music Club, founded in 1926, and owes its existence to Agnes McCausland Richardson Etherington (1880–1954), a driving force behind the club. Agnes Etherington's grandfather had founded the grain dealer James Richardson & Sons in 1857 and the family had become very wealthy. Agnes's brother George Richardson, who died fighting in World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in 1916, left a legacy for her to use as she felt fit to stimulate development of the arts at Queen's University. She used this to found the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund, which still provides an important source of arts funding to the university.
In her will, Agnes Etherington bequeathed her house, an elegant Neo-Georgian mansion, to Queen's University for use as a university and community art gallery. The Art Centre opened to the public in 1957. The building was extended in 1962, 1975, 1978 and 2000, and now has an area of 1720m2.
Exhibits and exhibitions
The Art Centre has a permanent collection of 14,000 pieces ranging from the 14th century to the present, making it the third largest provincial gallery in Ontario. The collection includes paintings, sculptures, and graphics by major Canadian artists, European old master paintings, costumes, quilts, silver and other decorative objects, InuitInuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
art, and one of the largest public collections of African art in Canada. In 2006 a remarkable portrait thought to be of Isabella Clark Macdonald
Isabella Clark
Isabella Macdonald, née Clark was the first wife of John A. Macdonald, the premier of the Province of Canada in 1856. She was Macdonald's first cousin....
, painted around 1830, was acquired by the Art Centre. Recently U.S.-based philanthropists Alfred and Isabel Bader
Alfred Bader
Alfred Bader CBE is a Canadian chemist, businessman and collector of fine art.-Early years:Bader's father's family was of Czech Jewish descent; his mother was a Catholic Hungarian aristocrat. He fled from Austria to England in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution...
made their second donation of a painting by 17th-century Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn, Head of a Man in a Turban, to the Art Centre.
Major artists who are represented in the collection or have exhibited at the Art Centre include Rebecca Belmore
Rebecca Belmore
Rebecca Belmore is a Anishinaabe-Canadian artist based in Vancouver. Her work addresses history, voice and voicelessness, place, and identity through the media of sculpture, installation, video and performance.-Life:...
, Shary Boyle
Shary Boyle
Shary Boyle is a Canadian artist who works with sculpture, painting, drawing and performance. She lives in Toronto.- Early life and education :...
, AA Bronson
AA Bronson
AA Bronson, OC, is an artist, magazine publisher and curator who co-founded the artists' group General Idea.-General Idea:The General Idea artists group was founded in 1969 by Bronson, Jorge Zontal and Felix Partz...
, Ian Carr-Harris
Ian Carr-Harris
Ian Carr-Harris is a Canadian artist living in Toronto. In addition to exhibiting internationally, Carr-Harris is a professor at the Ontario College of Art & Design.-Life:...
, Sarindar Dhaliwal
Sarindar Dhaliwal
Sarindar Dhaliwal is a Toronto based multi-media artist, writer and teacher. She was born in the Punjab, and grew up in Southall, London...
, André Fauteux
André Fauteux
André Fauteux is a Canadian artist born in Dunnville, Ontario, Canada on March 15, 1946, who now lives in Toronto, Ontario. Fauteux is a sculptor known for his abstract welded steel sculpture, which relates to Geometric abstraction...
, Harun Farocki
Harun Farocki
Harun Farocki is a German filmmaker.He has made over 90 films, the vast majority of them short experimental documentaries...
, Vera Frenkel, General Idea
General Idea
General Idea was a collective of three Canadian artists, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson, who were active from 1967 to 1994.As pioneers of early conceptual and media-based art, their collaboration became a model for artist-initiated activities and continues to be a prominent influence on...
, Robert Houle
Robert Houle
Robert Houle is a Saulteaux First Nations artist, curator, critic, and educator. Houle has had an active curatorial and artistic practice since the mid 1970s...
, Luis Jacob
Luis Jacob
-Life and work:Jacob was born in Lima, Peru and moved to Canada with his family when he was ten. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1996....
, Fernand Leduc
Fernand Leduc
Fernand Leduc is a Canadian abstract expressionist painter who was a major figure in the Quebec contemporary art scene in the 1940s and 1950s. During his 50-year career, Leduc has participated in many expositions in Canada, France and other countries...
, Kim Ondaatje
Kim Ondaatje
Kim Ondaatje is a Canadian painter, photographer, and documentary filmmaker.-Biography:Born in Toronto, Ontario, Ondaatje studied at the Ontario College of Art and McGill University. She completed a M.A. in Canadian Literature at Queen's University, while on a teaching fellowship...
, Annie Pootoogook
Annie Pootoogook
Annie Pootoogook is a Canadian contemporary Inuit artist. Her influences include her mother, Napatchie Pootoogook , and her grandmother, Pitseolak Ashoona , both of whom were accomplished artists.-Artwork:Pootoogook began drawing in 1997, working with the disarmingly simple media...
, David Rokeby
David Rokeby
David Rokeby is an artist who has been making works of electronic, video and installation art since 1982.His early work Very Nervous System is acknowledged as a pioneering work of interactive art, translating physical gestures into real-time interactive sound environments...
, William Ronald
William Ronald
William Ronald, R.C.A. William Ronald, R.C.A. (August 13, 1926 – February 9, 1998) William Ronald, R.C.A. (August 13, 1926 – February 9, 1998) (born William Ronald Smith, was an important Canadian painter, best known as the founder of the influential Canadian abstract art group...
, Horatio Walker
Horatio Walker
Horatio Walker was a respected and commercially successful Canadian painter. He worked in oils and watercolors, often depicting scenes of rural life in Canada. He was highly influenced by the French Barbizon school of painting.-Early life:Horatio Walker was born in 1858 to parents Thomas and...
, Norman White
Norman White
Norman White is a Texas-born Canadian New Media artist and pioneer of using electronics and robotics in art.-Life:White grew up in and around Boston, Massachusetts, and obtained his B.A. in Biology from Harvard University in 1959...
and Bill Vazan
Bill Vazan
Bill Vazan is a Canadian artist, born in Toronto, Ontario in 1933. He studied Fine Arts at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, and at the École des beaux-arts in Paris. In 1970 he graduated with a B.A. from Sir George Williams University, now Concordia University, in Montreal, Quebec. He...
.
Recent exhibitions include:
- Sep 5, 09 - Dec 13, 09 Diane Laundry: The Defibrillators
- July 4, 09 - Sep 13, 09 Liz Magor: Military Through the Ages
- May 23, 09 - Aug 16, 09 Michael Campbell: Field Recordings of Icebergs Melting
- May 9, 09 - Oct 25, 09 Bright Colours, Big Canvas: Jack Bush
Selected publications
The Art Centre has issued many publications over the years. A selection follows:| Title | Author(s) | |
|---|---|---|
| The World Upside Down | Richard William Hill | ISBN 978-1-894773-28-7 |
| The Bader Collection: Dutch and Flemish Paintings | David de Witt | ISBN 978-1-55339-094-7 |
| One image doesn't take the place of the previous one | Harun Farocki et al. | ISBN 978-2-920394-75-9 |
| Beyond the Silhouette: Fashion and the Women of Historic Kingston | M. Elaine MacKay | ISBN 978-1-55339-093-0 |
| Etherington House: Building a Legacy | Patricia Sullivan | ISBN 978-1-55339-091-6 |
| Lyla Rye: Hopscotch | Kenneth Hayes | ISBN 978-1-55339-092-3 |
| Telling Stories, Secret Lives | Jan Allen, Steven Matijcio et al. | ISBN 978-1-55339-088-6 |
| Neutrinos They Are Very Small | Jan Allen, Corinna Ghaznavi & Allison Morehead | ISBN 978-1-55339-089-3 |
| "An Artist After All": Daniel Fowler in Canada | Dorothy M. Farr | ISBN 1-55339-090-3 |
| Sarindar Dhaliwal: Record Keeping | Sunil Gupta, Richard Fung, Janice Cheddie et al. | ISBN 1-899127-05-4 |
| Erik Edson: Fable | Jan Allen & Catherine Osborne | ISBN 1-55339-086-5 |
| Ah, Wilderness! Resort Architecture in the Thousand Islands | Pierre de la Ruffinière du Prey & Dorothy Farr | ISBN 0-88911-543-5 |
| Machine Life | Jan Allen, Ihor Holubizky & Caroline Seck Langill | ISBN 0-88911-918-x |
| Gary Kibbins: Grammar Horses | Jan Allen & Gary Kibbins | ISBN 0-88911-916-3 |
| Connected: Contemporary Art in Kingston | Jan Allen (ed) | ISBN 0889119120 |
| A Gift of Genius: A Rembrandt for Kingston | David de Witt & Angela Roberts | ISBN 0-88911-904-X |
| Museopathy | Jan Allen, Jim Drobnick & Jennifer Fisher | ISBN 0889119082 |
| Better Worlds: Activist and Utopian Projects by Artists | Jan Allen & Laura U. Marks | ISBN 0889119120 |
| Who Means What: Brent Roe, Paintings 1992-2001 | John Armstrong | ISBN 0889119066 |
| Laurel Woodcock: Take Me, I'm Yours | Jan Allen & Paul Kelley | ISBN 0889118272 |
| Gretchen Sankey: Some of the Parts | Jan Allen | ISBN 0889117543 |
| Jayce Salloum | Jim Drobnick & Jennifer Fisher | ISBN 0889117527 |
| Crime and Punishment | Jennifer Rudder | ISBN 1889117500 |
| Flaming Creatures: New Tendencies in Canadian Video. | Gary Kibbins. | ISBN 0889117489 |
| Tapes that Think: Video Works by Steve Reinke, Tran T. Kim-Trang, Rodney Werden | Gary Kibbins | ISBN 0889117020 |
| Edifice | Jan Allen | ISBN 0889117489 |
| Germaine Koh: Persona | Jan Allen | ISBN 0889117446 |
| Of Mudlarkers and Measurers | S. Dhaliwal | ISBN 088911742x |
| Rise and Fall: John Dickson, Laurie Walker. | Jan Allen (et al.) | ISBN 0889117063 |
| Sophie Bellissent: In the Flesh | Jan Allen | ISBN 0889117403 |
| RX: Taking Our Medicine | Jan Allen, Kim Sawchuck | ISBN 0889116989 |
| Pictorial Incidents The Photography of William Gordon Shields | Michael Bell | ISBN 0889115044 |
| A. A. Chesterfield Ungava Portraits 1902-04 | William C. James | ISBN 0889113734 |
| Heritage Quilt Collection | Ruth McKendry & Dorothy Farr | ISBN 0889115397 |