The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

A History of Impressionism

Fri,12 Oct 2012 16:51:34 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.

Tom Wesselmann

Fri,18 May 2012 16:51:34 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)

Selections from the Museum�s Collection of European Master Drawings

Tue,14 Feb 2012 16:51:34 EDT

Lyonel Feininger: From Manhattan to the Bauhaus

Sat,21 Jan 2012 16:51:34 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)

Resolute Bay - The Daytime Journey in the Night

Sun, 6 Nov 2011 16:51:34 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.

Inner Space - An Installation by Michael Merrill

Sun, 6 Nov 2011 16:51:34 EDT

This fall, Montreal painter Michael Merrill will exhibit a series of twelve gouaches inspired by the work site and architecture of the new pavilion and the reinstallation of the Museum’s collections. Representing the Museum’s various spaces and architectural elements, the works will be scattered among the four pavilions like echoes of these spaces and invitations to contemplation. Here he tells us something about his connection to the museum world — particularly with the Museum, which he has been visiting since childhood — and his artistic practice.

Dorothea Rockburne : In My Mind's Eye

Sun, 6 Nov 2011 16:51:34 EDT

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

Big Bang: Creativity Is Given Carte Blanche

Sun, 6 Nov 2011 16:51:34 EDT

As part of this fall’s celebrations, the Museum wished to pay tribute to contemporary creativity by organizing a multidisciplinary exhibition, an innovative and unifying event, free of charge and accessible to everyone. Some twenty renowned artists from several disciplines have been given carte blanche to create an installation, the only condition being that it be based on a work of their choice from the Museum’s collection, to renew and reinvent it. Art inspires artists for all time: "With this original project, the Museum’s collection becomes an open work, justifying the essential mission of this institution: to conserve the works of yesterday that inspire the artists of today," states Nathalie Bondil, Museum Director.

La forme des jours [The Shape of Days]

Wed,22 Jun 2011 16:51:34 EDT

From June 21 to October 2, 2011, the Museum will present a new installation by Serge Murphy in the Contemporary Art Square. For his first solo exhibition in a Montreal museum, the artist decided to cover the walls with a multitude of statuettes cobbled together out of wood, cardboard, paint, string and all kinds of wire, and set on little shelves like knick-knacks or holyicons. The installation is entitled La forme des jours [The Shape of Days].

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier:

Fri,17 Jun 2011 16:51:34 EDT

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 international exhibition devoted to the celebrated French couturier. Gaultier 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. Very early, his avant-garde fashions reflected an understanding of a multicultural society's issues and preoccupations, shaking up – with invariable good humour – established societal and aesthetic codes. More of a contemporary installation than a fashion retrospective, this major exhibition, which features 140 ensembles and numerous documents, is particularly innovative in the theatrical mise en scène and multimedia approach provided by UBU/Compagnie de création's animated mannequins. "I think the way people dress today is a form of artistic expression. Saint Laurent, for instance, has made great art. Art lies in the way the whole outfit is put together. Take Jean Paul Gaultier. What he does is really art," said Andy Warhol (Mondo Uomo, 1984).

The Exhibition The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk is organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in collaboration with the maison Jean Paul Gaultier.

Five Centuries of European Prints from the Collection of Drs. Jonathan Meakins and Jacqueline McClaran

Tue, 5 Apr 2011 16:51:34 EDT

The Museum is pleased to present The Physician’s Eye, a selection of works from the private collection of Drs. Jonathan Meakins and Jacqueline McClaran. In honour of this occasion, Dr. Meakins has composed the following observations on their acquisitions.

Red Flag

Thu, 3 Mar 2011 16:51:34 EDT

The Museum will present, from March 3 to June 5, 2011, a group
of contemporary Chinese artworks from Montreal collections. Red Flag,
Contemporary Chinese Art in Montreal Collection is the first exhibition
by a Quebec museum devoted to the recent explosion of Chinese art,
which constitutes one of the most remarkable phenomenons on the global
art scene in the past ten years.

The admission to the exhibition is free at all times.

The Warrior Emperor and China's Terracotta Army

Fri,11 Feb 2011 16:51:34 EDT

A unique selection of some 300 artefacts, including the famouslife-size terracotta soldiers of the first Qin Emperor's army, willtake visitors back through 1,000 years of Chinese art and history. Bronze vessels, ceramic figurines, jade ornaments, gold swords, architectural fittings and military accoutrements, invaluable evidence of the material culture of the Chou dynasty (1045-221 BC), the first Qin empire (221 BC- 206 BC) and the Western Han dynasty (206 BC-23 AD), will shed light on the birth of a new cultural and geo-political cohesion that would indelibly permeate China for centuries to come.

More information

19th-Century French Photographs
from the National Gallery of Canada

Thu, 4 Nov 2010 16:51:34 EDT

This exhibition will feature approximately eighty works from 1840 to 1900 by some of the major practitioners of photography in France during that time—Édouard Baldus, Maxime du Camp, J. B. Greene, Gustave Le Gray and Nadar—and several examples of Eugène Atget’s work from the early twentieth-century. The exhibition will highlight the variety of techniques that were explored: daguerreotypes, salted paper prints, albumen silver prints and photogravures. All works are drawn from the National Gallery of Canada’s extensive collection of nineteenth-century French photography. Admission to the exhibition is free at all times.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

A History of Impressionism

Tom Wesselmann

Selections from the Museum�s Collection of European Master Drawings

Lyonel Feininger: From Manhattan to the Bauhaus

Resolute Bay - The Daytime Journey in the Night

Inner Space - An Installation by Michael Merrill

Dorothea Rockburne : In My Mind's Eye

Big Bang: Creativity Is Given Carte Blanche

La forme des jours [The Shape of Days]

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier:

Five Centuries of European Prints from the Collection of Drs. Jonathan Meakins and Jacqueline McClaran

Red Flag

The Warrior Emperor and China's Terracotta Army

19th-Century French Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada

19th-Century French Photographs
from the National Gallery of Canada