Insights: Obsession
The Gardiner Museum brings together people of all ages and backgrounds through the shared values of creativity, wonder, and community that clay and ceramic traditions inspire.
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Insights: Obsession
October 20, 2018 @ 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Please note: This event is now at capacity. We will no longer be accepting RSVPs. Click here to see more special exhibition programs.
Co-presented with The Japan Foundation
To celebrate the opening of Obsession: William Van Horne’s Japanese Ceramics, co-curators Ron Graham and Akiko Takesue, alongside catalogue contributor Laura Vigo (Curator of Asian Arts at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), will discuss the exhibition themes in this mini-symposium. Continental breakfast and exhibition viewing are included.
This event is free for Gardiner Friends with RSVP. Not a Gardiner Friend? Learn more about joining.
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: William Van Horne, Catalogue “C.B.,” ca 1876, E.P. Taylor Library and Archives, Gift of the Estate of Matthew S. Hannon, in memory of Mrs Willam Van Horne, 2001, LA.VHF.S3.12. Image © Art Gallery of Ontario.
