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Discover an installation of works by American artist Sharif Bey on now in our lobby. Bey's practice is influenced by African and Afro-diasporic aesthetic traditions, as well as ancient Andean ceramics and contemporary popular culture.
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Gardiner Friends are invited to bring their friends and guests for a full day of free admission to the exhibition Obsession: Sir William Van Horne’s Japanese Ceramics. As a Gardiner Friend, you can bring unlimited guests free of charge on this day!
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About the Exhibition
The second half of the 19th century was a golden age of collecting in Europe and North America. The epicenter in Canada was Montreal, then the country’s economic powerhouse. In a period of colonial expansion, its business leaders collected and displayed European and Asian art to convey their emerging power and status. Sir William Van Horne (1843-1915), the American-born builder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was one such collector.
Obsession: Sir William Van Horne’s Japanese Ceramics reunites for the first time what survives of Van Horne’s collection, alongside his exacting watercolors, elaborately annotated notebooks, letters, and related archival material. Together, these artifacts offer a remarkable case study in the history of collecting. Learn more
Header image: Tea bowl with design of baton, Kyoto ware, Kyoto, False seal of “Ninsei”, Edo-Meiji period, 19c., Stoneware, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 1944.Ee.6, Adaline Van Horne Bequest