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.
Curated by Rachel Gotlieb
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For the past thirty-five years, acclaimed Canadian artist Steven Heinemann has transformed the medium of ceramics in Canada. Working in varying scale, Heinemann explores the paradoxes between culture and nature, deliberation and chance, interior and exterior surfaces.
This first major retrospective examines Heinemann’s fascinating and evolving process to reveal how he uses form, texture, pigment, and imagery to achieve his wondrously tactile bowls, pods, and other universal shapes that embody the polarities between life and nature.
Heinemann’s process can stretch over months or even years, firing a piece multiple times, and reworking the surface by sandblasting, scratching, polishing, and stenciling to evoke glyph-like imagery. His studio is evoked in the gallery through an installation of sketchbooks and source material, including original photographs and a wall of ceramic test tiles. A time-lapse video shot by the artist documents a treated clay surface as it dries, warps, and cracks according to chance and calculation.
Click here to see Steven Heinemann in his studio discussing one of the works in the exhibition.
About the Artist
Since completing his MFA at Alfred University in 1983, Steven Heinemann (RCA) has taught widely in Canada and the United States. He has exhibited continuously since his first solo show at the Ontario Crafts Council in 1982, and his work is part of numerous public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Museum Of Fine Arts (Boston), Icheon World Ceramic Centre (Korea), National Museum of History (Taiwan), the Museum of Art and Design (New York), Museum Boymans van Beuningen (Rotterdam), and The Contemporary Museum (Honolulu).
Heinemann has received national and international awards including the Bavarian State Prize (Germany), the Juror’s Award (Mino, Japan), Fletcher Challenge (New Zealand), and in 1996, he was granted the Saidye Bronfman Award, Canada’s highest recognition of achievement in contemporary craft.
Heinemann lives and works near Cookstown, Ontario.
Exhibition Programs & Events
Tuesday October 17, 7 – 9 pm Steven Heinemann: Culture and Nature In Conversation Join exhibiting artist Steven Heinemann, Executive Director & CEO Kelvin Browne, and curator Rachel Gotlieb as they discuss how Heinemann’s artistic process has evolved through his lyrical investigations of containment, volume, and ornamentation. $15 General / $10 Gardiner Friends Learn more
Wednesday October 18, 10 am – 6 pm Steven Heinemann Friends Day Gardiner Friends are invited to join us for a sneak peek of the special exhibition Steven Heinemann: Culture and Nature. Free with RSVP. Learn more
Wednesday November 8, 6:30 – 8 pm Artist Lecture: Steven Heinemann Steven Heinemann reflects on his career as a Canadian contemporary ceramist and how philosophies of ecology, cosmology, and ancient artifacts have inspired his work. $15 General / $10 Gardiner Friends Learn more
Saturday November 11, 2 – 4 pm Steven Heinemann: Culture and Nature Exhibition Walk-Through Join Steven Heinemann and contemporary ceramics collector Raphael Yu for a walk-through of Culture and Nature. $30 General / $25 Gardiner Friends Learn more
Saturday November 18, 10 am – 4 pm Master Potter at Work: Steven Heinemann Steven Heinemann leads an intimate observation-based workshop in our Community Clay Studio for emerging, established, and curious ceramic makers, exploring key elements of his artistic process. $30 General / $25 Gardiner Friends Learn more
Saturday January 13, 1 – 3 pm Steven Heinemann: Culture and Nature Exhibition Walk-Through Join artist Steven Heinemann and exhibition curator Rachel Gotlieb for an in-depth walk-through of Culture and Nature. $30 General / $25 Gardiner Friends Learn more
Saturday January 20, 10 am – 5 pm Ceramic Change: How to Make It This one-day workshop intensive for emerging artists in the expanding field of ceramics will focus on the nuts and bolts of professional survival and enabling skilled connections. $25 General / $22 Gardiner Friends & Students Learn more
Presenting Sponsors The Thor E. & Nicole Eaton Family Charitable Foundation Ira Gluskin & Maxine Granovsky Gluskin
Exhibition Partners
Gail & Mark Appel David W. Binet Lisa & John Eaton Linda Frum & Howard Sokolowski Barb & Dougal Macdonald Diana Reitberger & Harry Beck Jason Wong & Angela Jerath
Image: Steven Heinemann, farawaysoclose (detail), 2000, Collection of the Gardiner Museum, Purchased with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program, G01.3.1, Photography by Toni Hafkenscheid