Expanding Horizons

Take a peak! Escape to the wilderness at the Museum!

Painting and Photography of American and Canadian Landscape 1860-1918

This summer, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is going green. On the one hand, the Museum is presenting the exhibition Expanding Horizons: Painting and Photography of American and Canadian Landscape 1860-1918, from June 18 to September 27. The “environmentally friendly” design and catalogue provide a contemporary take on the subject. On the other hand, the Museum is hosting an exhibition simultaneously celebrating Frédéric Back, an activist-artist who, through his images and his films, has attempted to spread awareness about the intrinsic value of the natural beauty that surrounds us.Lastly, the Museum is taking this opportunity to announce its new policy of sustainable development.

The exhibition Expanding Horizons: Painting and Photography of American and Canadian Landscape 1860-1918is the first exploration and analysis of this subject. The show examines American and Canadian landscape painting and photography in the years encompassing the American Civil War, the emergence of the Canadian Confederation and the close of World War I, an era of artistic and historical transformation coinciding with the westward expansion of Canada and the realization of the transcontinental political definition of both countries. Through the presentation and comparison of American and Canadian depictions of landscapes, the similar and differing intentions underlying their production, their complementary yet distinctive compositional structures and styles, and their prioritizations of subjects, the exhibition reveals much about both nations. Following its presentation in Montreal this summer, Expanding Horizons will travel to the Vancouver Art Gallery in October.

Close to 200 works by American and Canadian artists shed light on the national and regional identities of these two great countries, in which nature is ever-present. The generous co-operation of outstanding international public and private collections enabled the Museum to exhibit some of the most celebrated examples of landscape painting and photography ever produced by these two nations. American painting are represented by such artists as Bierstadt, Chase, Church, Cropsey, Duncanson, Eakins, Hartley, Hassam, Heade, Homer, Inness, Kensett, Moran, O’Keeffe, Remington, Sargent and Twachtman; and photography by Coburn, Curtis, Jackson, Muybridge, O’Sullivan, Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand and Watkins, among others. Outstanding paintings by Canadians, including works by Brymner, Carr, Cullen, Edson, Fraser, Gagnon, Harris, Jackson, Jacoby, Leduc, MacDonald, Milne, Morrice, Suzor-Coté, Thomson and Verner, as well as works by photographers, including Baltzly, Henderson and Notman, are also presented.

“Over and above art-historical research, how can we also integrate certain values that are common to us all? Each time we plan an exhibition, we are challenged by the absolutely essential issue of its relevance not only in scholarly, but also in wider, societal terms,” declares the Museum’s Director, Nathalie Bondil. “That is why I wanted to take a very environmentally friendly approach to the exhibition design and catalogue of this contemporary take on the subject of landscape, and asked Frédéric Back, a visionary who has always put his art at the service of the natural world, to act as spokesperson. The Museum, of course, intends this to be a long-term commitment involving every level of the institution.”

In parallel with the exhibition Expanding Horizons, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is presenting Frédéric Back: One with Nature from June 18 to September 27, 2009. The Museum has founded necessary to bring to light the unique work of this artist, an environmental activist before it became fashionable. This exhibition features two sketchbooks, fifty-four original drawings and nineteen original sequences of cels from the films The man Who Planted Trees and The Mighty River. Many works are being exhibited for the first time. Visitors will discover too L’horreur boréale (The Boreal Horror), created especially for the exhibition. Richard Gagnier Head of the Museum’s Conservation Department, is the curator of the exhibition.

Curators
Hilliard T. Goldfarb, Associate Chief Curator at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, is the curator of the exhibition. He has been supported by an academic committee of specialists, including Philip Brookman, Curator of Photography and Media Arts, Corcoran Gallery of Art; Brian Foss, professor, Concordia University, Montreal; François-Marc Gagnon, professor, Director, Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, Concordia University; Lynda Jessup, professor, Queen’s University, Kingston; Jackson Lears, professor, Rutgers University, New Jersey; Ian Thom, Senior Curator, Historical, Vancouver Art Gallery.

Sponsors
The exhibition Expanding Horizons: Painting and Photography of American and Canadian Landscape 1860-1918is presented in Montreal by Sun Life Financial.

The exhibition is also supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

The Museum would like to recognize the tireless support of the Association of Volunteer Guides of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The Museum also thanks the Conseil des arts de Montréal and the Ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine du Québec for their ongoing support.