In accordance with the announcement by the provincial government, the Gardiner Museum has closed temporarily. The health and safety of our visitors, staff, and the wider community remains our top priority. We'll continue to provide you with engaging digital content to keep us connected while the galleries are closed.
During our temporary closure, we're posting exhibitions and selections from our collection online. Discover Inuit ceramics, Chinese and Japanese porcelain, pottery from the Ancient Americas, and more!
On Thursday April 29 at 1 pm, join us for a free online lecture with Professor Alison McQueen, who will discuss the significant contributions of women working at Sèvres in the first century of its history. The presentation will feature works from leading international porcelain collections and bring attention to the often-overlooked roles of women retouching glaze, laying down prints, and burnishing. Register now!
Every object in our permanent collection can be accessed through our eMuseum portal. Learn about individual collecting areas, like Italian Maiolica or Modern and Contemporary Ceramics, or search the full collection by keyword. You'll be amazed by what you discover!
With the Museum closed temporarily, we need your support to continue to offer innovative and engaging exhibitions, programs, and community projects online, as well as plan for the future. Please consider making a donation to help us build community with clay.
Betty Woodman (American , b. 1930) is among the most original and most important contemporary ceramic artists. Since the 1970s, she has produced a significant and distinctive body of work that explores the boundaries between ceramics, painting, and sculpture in exciting and innovative ways. Her work has been collected by major museums around the globe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. In 2006, Woodman was given a full retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an honour rarely bestowed by that institution on living artists.
Betty Woodman: Places, Spaces & Things features a selection of Woodman’s painted ceramics and wall installations from the past 20 years of her career. The heart of the exhibition is a group of fifty porcelain vessels that were created by Woodman during multiple residencies at the Sevres Factory in France between 1987 and 2009. Inspired by historical examples, these porcelains feature expressively distorted forms and brightly painted surfaces that recall the work of modern masters like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. In addition to the Sèvres pieces, the exhibition also includes a number of large-scale painted ceramic vessels and several of Woodman’s monumental canvas and ceramic painting installations.
Places, Spaces & Things is the first major exhibition of Woodman’s work in Canada. The exhibition is guest-curated for the Gardiner Museum by Patterson Sims, former director of the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey, working in conjunction with the artist.