Free of charge, reservation required
About the speakers
Paul Roth is Director of The Image Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University. Previously, he served as Executive Director of The Richard Avedon Foundation in New York; as Senior Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC; and as archivist of the Robert Frank Collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Since 1990, Roth has organized (or helped organize) more than 100 museum exhibitions and film programs. A leading authority on the life and work of Richard Avedon, Roth edited and co-authored Richard Avedon: Immortal, Portraits of Aging 1951-2004 (Phaidon, 2025), as well as Richard Avedon: Portraits of Power (Steidl, 2008), and contributed an essay to Richard Avedon: Murals and Portraits (Gagosian, 2012). Roth is also co-author of numerous books about American photographer Gordon Parks, including Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story (2018) and Gordon Parks: Collected Works (2012).
Zhao-Ionescu Chief Curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts since 2020, Mary-Dailey Desmarais oversees a multidisciplinary team dedicated to enriching, sharing 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 exhibitions, as shared by those who brought them to life.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Location: Maxwell Cummings Auditorium, 1379-A, Sherbrooke Street West
Terms of the reservation: 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.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Associated programming
Public Partners
Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts de Montréal, and Gouvernement du Québec
Major Patrons
Fondation de la Chenelière and Fondation Ariane Riou et Réal Plourde
Patron
The Molson Foundation
Exhibition
The MMFA wishes to thank Florence Minz for her generous contribution.
Public partners
Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts de Montréal and Gouvernement du Québec
Official Sponsors
Air Canada, Air Canada Cargo and Denalt Paints
Media Partners
La Presse
