New on View
Since its founding in 1880, the Gallery has built a renowned collection of more than 78,000 historical and contemporary works of art, produced by artists from Canada and around the world. The collection is rich and varied, and consists of sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, videos, installations and sound art.
Each year, hundreds of works from the Gallery's collection are presented in a wide range of installations and special exhibitions, some of which are showcased here.
Giovan Antonio Caravaggi
Cariani (Giovanni de’ Busi) c. 1520–30
oil on canvas
Little is known about the life of Caravaggi. We do know that the artist also painted his brother because their family coat of arms appears in two portraits. The crest can be seen painted on a shield, hanging from the laurel tree at the left, just above the artist’s signature. The sitter is depicted in the standard format for portraits from this period – half-length and angled before a ledge, with a landscape setting as a backdrop. Cariani himself trained in the Venetian workshop of Giovanni Bellini, but also spent several years in his native Bergamo.
Purchased 1928 (no. 3568)
On View C203
Max Klinger
Friedrich Nietzsche model c. 1904
patinated bronze
Following a lengthy struggle with illness, the famed philosopher Nietzsche died in 1900. To shape his legacy, his sister established the Nietzsche Archive and commissioned a bust by Klinger as its focus. The monumental marble, showing him as both human and heroic, became his public image; this is a bronze copy. Set atop a pedestal, it evokes ancient Greek sculpture; the imposing presentation matches the veritable cult that grew around the philosopher.
Pedestal: reproduction made after the artist’s design
Gift of the Robert Tanenbaum Family Trust, Toronto, 1999
(no. 40159)
On View C215
Andrea Sacchi
Cardinal Lelio Biscia c. 1630
oil on canvas
Biscia is shown in mid-action, glancing up from the paper he holds, resulting in a sense of engagement and intimacy. Sacchi chose not to fully finish the painting, but its spontaneity is more contrived than it appears. The degree of finish depended upon taste and a painting’s function: this work would have appealed to connoisseurs. Sacchi kept it for his own collection of portraits of his patrons. His assistants likely produced a more finished version for the cardinal. Biscia (1575–1638) served on the committee charged with completing St. Peter’s, putting him in contact with the leading artists in Rome.
Frame: carved wood, gilded and tooled. Italy (Emilia), 17th century
Purchased 1911 (no. 305)
On View C220
Qavavau Manumie
Untitled (Becoming a Community) 2004
coloured pencil and black felt pen on wove paper
Manumie’s style is unique among his contemporaries at Kinngait Studios. He oscillates between extremes in his work, from narrative and lyrical to abstract and expressive. The artist brings together all these styles in this naturalistic rendering of the Inuit transition from seasonal camps to settlements in the 1940s and 1950s. This unexpected bird’s eye view of the community’s location on an imaginary island evokes feelings of trepidation or anticipation toward the unknown.
Purchased 2011 (no. 43370)
On View B101
Christi Belcourt
Water Song 2010–11
acrylic on canvas
Foregrounding Métis history and aesthetic practices, this painting includes around 150,000 to 250,000 bead-like dots and blends Belcourt’s knowledge of beadwork traditions with her expertise in medicinal plants. Various plants are represented, as well as insects, raindrops, dew and birds. The patterns have been adapted from nature, with several inspired by traditional Métis floral beadwork. A visual ode to water, the work recognizes the life that water brings to everything and everyone.
Purchased 2011 (no. 43469)
On View B102
Jacoposie Oopakak
Nunali c. 1988–89
dark-green stone, antler, sinew, bone, steel and black inlay
An entire world view is contained within the gracefully arcing forms of this set of antlers. Antler is a fairly common medium in Inuit art, but the inclusion of a full pair is a rarity. Oopakak demonstrates extraordinary technical skill in his ability to carve figures in this delicate material, and his training in jewellery making comes into play in the precise and intricate details.
Purchased 2003 (no. 41188)
On View B102
Olia Mischenko
Ravine World 2013–14
pen and black ink on wove paper
Mischenko's intricate drawings arise from her observations of the topographic and sociological conditions of the ravines and waterways of the highly urbanized Golden Horseshoe area of Southern Ontario. This landscape is coveted for residential development because of its picturesque shorelines. Increasingly fragile and threatened eco-systems, such natural borders have been marred by erosion and often must be re-inforced to sustain human interaction. As areas where people explore and escape, gather and play, ravines embody both the urban and natural, controlled and wild, public and private.
Purchased 2016 (no. 46984.1-8)
On View B102
Caroline Monnet
Proximal I, II, III, IV, V 2018
concrete, polystyrene and fibreglass
This work evokes the artist’s French and Anishinaabe roots, referencing the standing stones of Britanny and the lunar cycles central to Algonquin tradition. In this way, the spheres serve as guideposts and monuments of transatlantic journey. Monnet sees this Atlantic route, layered with colonial histories and economic interchanges, as a vexed yet fertile space. The spheres bring a sense of grounding in contrast to the turbulence of the ocean.
Purchased 2019 (no. 48740.1-5)
On View B105
Marianne Nicolson
The Harbinger of Catastrophe 2017
glass, wood, shell, halogen bulb and electrical components
This work is, in part, a response to the 2010 flooding of Nicolson’s home community, which she considers to be a consequence of extensive, long-term logging and climate change. Shadows climb slowly up the gallery walls suggesting rising sea levels and global flooding, while images on the glass box juxtapose the colonial commodi-fication of land with Indigenous teachings of land stewardship.
Purchased 2021 (no. 49118)
On View B108
Mona Hatoum
Projection (velvet) 2013
silk velvet and mild steel
Hatoum’s map of the world has been
created with the intent of presenting landmasses in their true proportions. Through the exclusion of names of continents, countries or borders, the artist aims to represent the globe rather than territorial boundaries, offering a subtle and powerful rethinking of the way we perceive the world.
Gift of Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa, Vancouver,
2021 (no. 49740)
On View B104
Mona Hatoum
Balançoires 2010
sandblasted glass seats and stainless-steel chains
Installed alongside each other so that they are clearly separate but parallel, detailed maps of divided urban spaces depict east and west Beirut. The delicacy of the etched maps and the fragility of the glass form an effective language to speak about the tumultuous social and political climate in Lebanon, following a resurgence of violence in the country in the early 2000s.
Gift of Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa, Vancouver,
2021 (no. 49738)
On View B104
Bharti Kher
Points of Departure I 2018
Points of Departure III 2018
Points of Departure VI 2018
bindis adhered to colour lithographs on beige paper
Using archival maps from across the globe, Kher applies bindis of various sizes, shapes and colours over maps to address themes of migration, displacement and colonialism through processes of repetition. The “serpent” bindi ties together all the Americas in Points of Departure I; arrows meander across the “Mer du Nord” in Points of Departure VI; and the more ubiquitous and traditional circle bindi multiplies in patches across the territories of the former USSR in Points of Departure III.
Purchased 2020 (nos. 49075, 49076, 49077)
On View B104
Mike MacDonald
Seven Sisters 1989
7 digital videos
With a goal of expressing new ways to understand and depict the natural environment, this work came out of an invitation the artist received to document the cultural knowledge that was shared by community Elders during the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en land-claim debates. Through this experience, the artist listened to community stories and learned about the spiritual value of the sacred mountain range, the Seven Sisters.
Purchased 2011 (no. 43410)
On View B104
![Fernando Poyón, Una luz, una sombra [A Light, a Shadow], 2017, acrylic and ink on canvas.](https://www.gallery.ca/sites/default/files/styles/ngc_scale_640/public/ngc_49116_010.jpg?itok=XW4NNYym)
Fernando Poyón
Una luz, una sombra [A Light, a Shadow] 2017
acrylic and ink on canvas
In this poignantly titled image, Poyón reconfigures countries of the world to create a new order that displaces Western paradigms and speaks to the aspiration of a borderless world. He situates Mayan culture and experience within a global context and speaks to the urgency of migration and barriers to global mobility.
Purchased 2021 (no. 49116)
On View B104
Danh Vo
2.2.1861 2009–20
blue ink on laid paper with stamped envelope
While researching French Catholic missionaries in Vietnam, the artist came across a letter that a young priest, Jean-Théophane Vénard, had written to his father before he was executed for refusing to denounce his faith. Inspired by the letter, the artist asked his own father to reproduce it, making the work an open-ended multiple that has been replicated more than 1,700 times. Reflecting on father-son bonds and the dark history of colonialism in Vietnam, this work offers a critical look at value and meaning in artworks.
Purchased 2020 (no. 49097)
On View B104
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