Photography

Ann Thomas, Senior Curator of Photographs

Ann Thomas has organized numerous exhibitions and installations, and is the author of several catalogues and publications, including Lisette Model (1990, Wittenborn Award), No Man’s Land: Lynne Cohen Photographs (2001), Modernist Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada (2007), American Photographs 1900–1950 from the National Gallery of Canada (2011), The Great War: The Persuasive Power of Photography (2014), and The Intimate World of Josef Sudek (2016).

She has lectured, served on juries, and published extensively, both nationally and internationally. She is the editor of Beauty of Another Order: Photography in Science (1997, Kraszna Kraus Award) and The Extended Moment: Fifty Years of Collecting Photographs at the National Gallery of Canada with John McElhone (2018, 2nd Prize — Alcuin Society). She curated the exhibition Don McCullin (2013), as well as numerous installations of works from the Gallery collection, which can be viewed online.

Lori Pauli, Curator of Photographs

Lori Pauli has organized several exhibitions, including major monographs on the work of Canadian photographers, such as Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky (2003), Utopia/Dystopia: The Photographs of Geoffrey James (2008), and Domestic Symphonies: The Photographs of Margaret Watkins in 2012.

She has also organized thematic exhibitions, including Acting the Part: Photography as Theater (2006), and 19th-Century British Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada (2011). In addition, she organized the first major retrospective exhibition on the life and work of the Swedish-British photographer, Oscar Gustave Rejlander (2018), presented both at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

She has published essays on the work of photographers Paul-Émile Miot, André Kertesz, Stella Simon, Edward Weston, Diane Arbus and Gary Schneider.  Other publications include essays for catalogues produced by the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Kunsthalle in Vienna, the Street Level Gallery in Glasgow, and the Mois de la Photo in Montréal. She has also contributed articles on photography to the journals History of Photography, Studies in Photography and Ransom Notes, along with several entries for the Encyclopedias of Nineteenth Century and Twentieth Century Photography.

She was invited to be one of the authors for the Association of Art Museum Curators’ Standards and Guidelines Professional Practices for Art Museum Curators. In addition, she has been a guest lecturer at the University of Ottawa, where she taught the history of photography. She has also been invited to speak on various topics in photography in Canada and internationally.

Andrea Kunard, Associate Curator

Andrea Kunard curates exhibitions on Canadian photography for the National Gallery of Canada and the former Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography. In addition to exhibitions associated with the above-listed publications, she has worked on solo and group shows reflecting a wide range of artists and ideas, including the National Gallery Biennales (It Is What It Is. Recent Acquisitions of New Canadian Art (2010), Builders: Canadian Biennial (2012), Shine a Light (2014), 2017 Canadian Biennial), Artists, Architects & Artisans: Canadian Art 1890–1918 (2013) and The Disappearance of Darkness: Photography at the End of the Analog Era (Princeton Architectural Press: Ryerson Image Centre, 2013).

She has also collaborated with Sophie Hackett (Art Gallery of Ontario) and Urs Stahel (La Fondazione MAST, Bologna) on Anthropocene (2018), which showcased the photographs of Ed Burtynsky and the films of Jennifer Baichwal and Nick de Pencier. Other collaborations include work with Terry Graff (Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton) on Jaret Belliveau: Dominion Street (2014), and with Susan Gibson Garvey (former director of the Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax) on Marlene Creates — Places, Paths, and Pauses (2017). Kunard has taught the history of photography, Canadian art and cultural theory at Carleton University and Queen’s University, and has lectured on photography across Canada.

In addition, she was co-editor of The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada (McGill Queen’s U.P. 2008) with Professor Carol Payne, and has written articles on contemporary and historical photography in The Journal of Canadian Art History, the International Journal of Canadian Studies, and Early Popular Visual Culture. In 2017, she launched a major web-based project in association with Library and Archives Canada: Photostories Canada, featuring photographic essays from the National Film Board of Canada, Still Photography Division collection.