At the Dawn of its 150th anniversary The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

THREE HISTORIC RECORDS FOR THE MUSEUM IN 2007–2008

Record attendance: The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts had the highest annual attendance in its history—between April 1, 2007 and March 31, 2008, 636,219 visitors passed through its doors. Such great numbers can in particular be explained by the unexpected success of the campaign “This Fall, See It All for Free at the Museum.” Over 270,000 people visited three exhibitions that covered an eclectic range of subjects: the early history and art of our city in The Artistic Legacy of the Montreal Sulpicians; the private collections of Montreal art collectors in All for Art! Our Great Private Collectors Share Their Works; and finally, the bold experiments characterizing the art of tomorrow in e-art: New Technologies and Contemporary Art – Ten Years of Accomplishments by the Daniel Langlois Foundation, which alone drew 75,000 visitors. Beyond these exhibitions, the goal of this season was to strengthen the connection between the Museum and its community by reminding the Montreal public that admission to the Museum’s permanent collections is always free, which makes discovering—or rediscovering—their riches accessible to everyone.
Record donations of works: The incredible generosity of Montreal donors has resulted in gifts of art reaching the unprecedented value of an estimated $23 million, double the previous high-water mark. Collectors continue to enrich our city’s collective heritage. In addition, the setting up of new galleries reveals a museum that is open to and has a living connection with its community—a connection it has continued to forge for close to 150 years.
- A museum more open to history. The recently unveiled Napoleon Galleries, made possible as a result of the gift of the Ben Weider collection, received close to 20,000 visitors in the first four weeks it was open.
- A museum more open to all the world’s cultures. The new Pre-Columbian Art Galleries have benefited from Gerald Benjamin’s many recent gifts, while those displaying Sacred Africa II spotlight masterpieces on loan from the Cirque du Soleil and Guy Laliberté collections.
- A museum more open to designers. The new space devoted to contemporary art glass is currently home to The Body in Glass, a selection of works from the gift of the Anna and Joe Mendel collection. Another initiative is the recent opening of the Design Lab, a place to discover and try out furniture from contemporary designers first-hand.
Record fund-raising. The Museum Ball made a record net profit, which is a great reminder of just how much our institution owes the active involvement, year after year, of close to 500 volunteers.

For Nathalie Bondil, Museum Director and the first women to hold that position, “These results are a strong indication of Montrealers’ interest in art and in a museum that is open and responsive to them in a city where culture is a part—indeed a necessity—of everyday life, and something worth defending.”

INNOVATIVE PROGRAMMING DESIGNED TO OPEN OUR DOORS EVEN WIDER

Cuba! Art and History from 1868 to Today, with 450 works, is the largest retrospective ever devoted to Cuban art and its Montreal showing was visited by 135,000 people. Organized by the Museum, it received extraordinary international acclaim, from Eastern and Western Europe to throughout North and South America—including from the New York Times. The exhibition’s catalogue, edited and produced by the Museum, and available around the world in English, French and Spanish, made the American Library Association’s prestigious 2008 Top 10 Arts Books list. Beyond the island’s stereotypical image as a tourist destination, both the exhibition and its catalogue show how, since its wars of independence, artists have defined the national identity of the island nation, itself a microcosm of the twentieth century’s ideological conflicts. Collective art, political engagement and freedom of expression are the main themes of this exhibition, reflecting Cuban artists’ use over the last 150 years of colour, line, form and more to criticize—or change—the world in which they live. Designed in a spirit of friendship, the exhibition acted as a unifying force—and Montreal the neutral ground—that brought together writers, collectors and institutions from both Cuba and the United States. The exhibition will be presented at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands during summer 2009.
Yves Saint Laurent. The first retrospective of the forty-year career of the great couturier, a man who wished to empower women, drew a total of 140,369 visitors. Yves Saint Laurent is currently on view in San Francisco.

Beginning in 2011, the Museum’s Liliane and David M. Stewart Pavilion will be completely devoted to the decorative arts and design, which will enable us to improve the presentation of the collection, uncontestedly one of the best in North America.
Warhol Live: Music and Dance in Andy Warhol’s Work
With a wealth of 630 works and artifacts—many of them never before seen in public—this multidisciplinary exhibition brought music into the Museum for the first time. Designed by the MMFA, this major retrospective examined Warhol’s entire artistic output from the innovative viewpoint of music, dance and sound. It recounts the story of the child fan of Hollywood to the then-little known graphic designer of some fifty record covers to the pop artist not only fascinated by the stars of rock and disco, but also inspired by the work of John Cage. The exhibition also examines Warhol’s talents as discoverer and producer of the legendary band the Velvet Underground and Nico and the truly operatic—indeed, multimedia performance before the concept had yet been coined—Exploding Plastic Inevitable shows. The aural design of the exhibition, involving more than three hours of sound and music programming and a particular spatialization of sound in all of the exhibition’s galleries, is particularly sophisticated and marks a first of its scope in a fine arts museum, as well as a new field of investigation for the MMFA. Two extensive catalogues were produced for the occasion: one for the exhibition and a catalogue raisonné of all the record covers created by Andy Warhol.

Both works, which have been distributed throughout the world, were produced entirely in Quebec, with Orange Tango responsible for their graphic design and Transcontinental for their printing. Warhol Live is on view in San Francisco and at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh this summer.
Van Dongen: Painting the Town Fauve
Following its notable success in Monaco and before its presentation at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, beginning in January Montreal plays host to this first major North American retrospective of Van Dongen’s work. It affirms this artist’s key position within the avant-garde of the early twentieth century, alongside Matisse and Picasso. Co-produced with the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, this exhibition enjoyed an excellent critical reception in France. “In bringing together 200 works, including 130 paintings, of the Dutch-born Kees van Dongen (1877-1968), who ended his days in Monaco, Nathalie Bondil, Chief Curator at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and Jean-Michel Bouhours, Director of the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, have created one of the best exhibitions of the summer” (excerpt from Harry Bellet’s article in Le Monde, Saturday, August 2, 2008).

The exhibition catalogue published by the MMFA will be the first reference work in English devoted to this idiosyncratic Dutch painter. The exhibition also fulfils an obligation of remembrance by paying just tribute to Dr. Max Stern, the Montreal art dealer, donor and proselytizing enthusiast who promoted the work of Van Dongen and made it known among an entire generation of Canadians, as well as Americans. As each exhibition now provides an opportunity to explore the connections between the visual arts and music, in another first for the Museum an audioguide featuring a selection of music from the era offers visitors a musical stroll through the Van Dongen galleries.
Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John and Yoko
With the support of Yoko Ono, this spring the Museum will put the spotlight on peace. Imagine, a multidisciplinary exhibition designed by the Museum, will both commemorate and contextualize John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Bed-in in Montreal in May 1969, as well as provide a contemporary continuation of the pacifist actions undertaken by Ms. Ono, an artist associated with the Fluxus movement. Such actions are now more relevant than ever, as today’s headlines attest. In order that this pacifist message will reach the widest possible public, the Museum is once again offering everyone free admission to the exhibition at all times. A number of companies and many partners and suppliers have responded very positively to the Museum’s request for support for this exhibition by providing their services free of charge and thus helping to spread its universal message, which has relevance far beyond the confines of the institution itself. This inclusive approach will be sure to create a wonderful dynamic that will transform this free exhibition into a collective, socially committed work uniting all Montrealers around the same philosophy of peace.
Expanding Horizons: Painting and Photography of Canadian and American Landscapes 1860-1919.
For the first time, the two hundred works comprising this exhibition, again designed by the Museum, enable a comparison of Canadian and American paintings and photographs of Canadian and American landscapes in the years from 1860 to 1918. This exhibition has received a major grant from the U.S.’s Terra Foundation, which, for the very first time, is providing support for a Canadian institution in recognition of its innovative scholarship. In line with its theme, the Museum has decided to make this exhibition an example of environmental sustainability, so both its design and catalogue will follow the latest eco-friendly criteria. This new museological thrust, which poses a particular challenge in terms of publishing art books, will allow us, however, to also broaden our understanding of the works of the past. The brilliant artist Frédéric Back, a man who has always placed his cause ahead of even his own work, will bring this message of sustainability to the youngest among us, as an exhibition on his environmentally committed films will run in conjunction with Expanding Horizons.
A Paris preview: Fusion of Colour: The Glass of Louis C. Tiffany
Thanks to its acquisition of the Erskine and American Church (whose nave will be transformed into a concert hall), the Museum has inherited a series of Tiffany stained glass windows of incomparable quality, which are to be restored. While the work goes on to refurbish the church and build the new Pavilion of Canadian Art, the Museum team had the idea of designing a new exhibition devoted to Louis C. Tiffany. Our stained glass windows will, therefore, be journeying overseas—quite a technical and artistic challenge, to be sure! To be presented first in Paris at the Musée du Luxembourg, this exhibition will provide, due to the fragility of the 200 works to be shown, an exceptional opportunity to focus on Tiffany’s outstanding contribution to the design and technology of glass. The first Tiffany retrospective in France since 1900—curiously, his work is rarely shown in Europe—the exhibition will also see the publication of the first reference work in French on this artist. Following its Paris showing, the exhibition will be presented within our own walls before travelling to the United States.
Music also comes to the Museum in 2009 with the Arte Musica Foundation
Created by Pierre Bourgie, the new Arte Musica Foundation is now in residence at the Museum. The Foundation’s mission is to forge connections between the visual arts and music. In 2009, the bicentenary of the death of Haydn will be marked by a wide range of activities for schools, families and the public in general at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and McGill University’s Pollack Hall: concerts, lectures, courses and films, all focussing on the great composer’s string quartets.

IN 2009: MMFA EXHIBITIONS TRAVEL TO SEVEN CITIES AROUND THE WORLD

In San Francisco:During the spring, Warhol Live will be presented in the new Herzog & de Meuron building of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young.
In Pittsburgh: In the summer Warhol Live will move on to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the protean artist’s home town.
In Groningen: ¡Cuba! Art and History from 1868 to Todaywill open in the summer in the Netherlands’ Groninger Museum, in the 1994 building, designed by Alessandro Mendini and guest architects Philippe Starck, Michele de Lucchi and Coop Himmelb(l)au, that is still making waves in museum architecture today.
In Barcelona: Van Dongen will be on view during the summer at the recently expanded Museu Picasso de Barcelona, located in the heart of the city’s barrio gotico.
In Paris: Fusion of Colour: The Glass of Louis C. Tiffany will open in the fall in the City of Lights, at the Musée du Luxembourg. Following its showing in Montreal, it will be the inaugural exhibition in the new wing of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, located in Richmond, in 2010.
In Vancouver:Expanding Horizons will finish its run in the fall at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts will soon have…

A new Pavilion of Canadian Art
The Museum plays a leading role in the promotion of Canadian art. A new pavilion devoted exclusively to Canadian art, to be named the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion in honour of these very generous patrons’ support, will be inaugurated in 2011. It will allow us to double the space we currently have to exhibit the work of Canadian artists, from the time of New France to the Refus global. Connected by an underground walkway to the Museum’s other three pavilions, it will be built behind the Erskine and American Church, recently acquired by the Museum. The project as a whole is part of our institution’s desire to safeguard and restore, as well as give a new cultural vocation to, architectural heritage that has been classified as being of national importance.

Music at its heart
Located within its quadrangle of buildings, the Museum will restore the remarkable historic monument that is the Erskine and American Church. The nave, which includes the magnificent stained glass windows from the Tiffany studios, will be used to hold concerts and other musical and cultural activities organized by the new Arte Musica Foundation created by Pierre Bourgie. New audioguides featuring musical tours of exhibitions will also facilitate the convergence of the visual arts and music, including contemporary and world styles.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is also . . .

One of Canada’s most visited museums – According to Tourisme Montréal, the Museum is Montreal’s top cultural destination. It also figures among the city’s biggest tourist attractions, fifth in line after the Old Port, the Casino, the Bell Centre and the combination of the Biodôme and Botanical Garden. Founded in 1860 by a group of art lovers, the Museum was the first art museum to be established in Canada.
The only encyclopedic collection in Canada for which admission is free for everyone at all times – The Museum’s permanent collection comprises more than 35,000 works reflecting the main trends in art from antiquity to the present day. It is spread out over three (soon to be four) pavilions connected by an underground walkway, and spills outside by way of our sculpture garden. Numerous cultural activities, including lectures, films and guided tours, are offered throughout the year at no cost whatsoever.
One of Canada’s biggest publishers of internationally distributed art books – The books produced by the Museum’s Publishing Department are always available in Canada’s two official languages (French and English) and sometimes appear in a third (for example, Cuba in Spanish and Riopelle in Russian). Distributed abroad and reviewed internationally, these reference works act as ambassadors for our exhibitions and as a showcase for the talents and expertise of Quebec’s graphic designers and printers. Among our most recent titles, the catalogues of the exhibitions ¡Cuba! Art and History from 1868 to Today and the two-volume boxed set for Warhol Live have enjoyed particular attention, and are available for sale in both North and South America, as well as in Europe.
Educational and cultural activities that attract many different constituencies and an institution that is aware of current issues – Every year, close to 100,000 people take part in the educational and cultural activities organized by the Museum. Our school constituency is particularly significant, with each year more than 35,000 children and teenagers, along with their teachers, visiting the galleries that display the Museum’s permanent collection, as well as temporary exhibitions, and accompanied by the qualified educators the Museum puts at their disposal. Museum management wants to ensure the development of future audiences, so it has long put an emphasis on activities and programmes designed to make new and young clienteles more aware of the world of art.
Community programmes recognized for their innovation – Each year, the Museum organizes over 1,000 activities for 200 community organizations. Intergenerational programmes are currently being developed in partnership with LOVE (Leave Out Violence), an organization working with young people, with the Elderly Project, a Yellow Door programme, and Résidence Chez-soi, a seniors’ group. Another innovative programme for new immigrants aims to facilitate communicating via artworks from their respective native countries.

Most importantly, the Museum is a like-minded community of 42,000 member Friends, a remarkable figure that is continuously growing, some 500 volunteers who put a great deal of effort into supporting the institution and, finally, a team of 180 united, motivated employees, a record 85% of whom recently made donations to their city’s—and their Museum’s—major capital campaign.