Free of charge
About the collection
The MMFA houses one of North America’s largest and most important decorative arts and design collections, boasting over 24,000 objects from around the world. In September 2025, the Museum will unveil a new installation of this collection in the Liliane and David M. Stewart Pavilion. Bringing together more than 800 works dating from the Renaissance to today, the reinstallation combines collection highlights, recent acquisitions and objects never before displayed at the MMFA. Dale Chihuly’s monumental Sun, formerly displayed outdoors in front of the Museum, will now be at the heart of this new installation, anchoring the galleries .
About the speakers
Rachel Gotlieb, PhD, is a distinguished curator specializing in ceramics and design. As Ruth Rippon Curator at Sacramento’s Crocker Art Museum (2021–2023), she curated The Portland Vase: Mania and Muse. She has held a number of leadership roles, including that of Chief Curator at the Gardiner Museum (2011–2014) and founding curator of the Design Exchange in Toronto (1990–2002), where she co-authored the seminal book Design in Canada Since 1945: Fifty Years from Teakettles to Task Chairs.
Chief Curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts since 2020, Mary-Dailey Desmarais oversees a multidisciplinary team dedicated to enriching, promulgating and preserving a collection of close to 47,000 art works and objects dating from antiquity to the present. Since joining the Museum in 2014, she has notably curated the exhibitions Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music (2022), “How Long Does It Take for One Voice to Reach Another” (2021), Adam Pendleton: These Things We’ve Done Together (2021), and Once Upon a Time... The Western: A New Frontier in Art and Film (2017), whose accompanying catalogue won two awards. She has published widely in scholarly journals, exhibition catalogues and art magazines on subjects ranging from impressionism to global modern and contemporary art. Originally from New York, she holds a PhD in Art History from Yale University, an MA from Williams College and a BA from Stanford University.
About the series
The Preshow gives the public an in-depth preview of the Museum’s new exhibition, as shared by those who brought it to life.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Location: Maxwell Cummings Auditorium, 1379-A, Sherbrooke Street West
Reservation terms: Please note that seat reservations are held until the beginning of the event. Once the activity has started, any unoccupied seats will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
Language: Simultaneous interpretation in French will be offered at the lecture, free of charge.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Major Public Partner
Gouvernement du Québec
Major Patrons
Fondation de la Chenelière and Fondation Ariane Riou et Réal Plourde
Patron
The Molson Foundation
Public Partners
Canada Council for the Arts and Conseil des arts de Montréal
