"William Brymner: Artist, Teacher, Colleague" at the Winnipeg Art Gallery

Written by Callum Woodhead Tuesday, 19 April 2011 23:18

Winnipeg, Canada - The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is hosting "William Brymner: Artist, Teacher, Colleague" from 14 May until 21 August. The exhibition explores a number of intriguing questions about the artist. How did an artist from a small Scottish town become a major influence on important Canadian artists like A.Y. Jackson, Maurice Cullen, and James Wilson Morrice? How did he become the core of a creative milieu that made Montreal the undisputed hub of Canadian art in the first decade of the 20th century? And what were his ties to the WAG? This exhibition is organized and toured by the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen’s University, Kingston, with the co-operation of Power Corporation of Canada and a contribution from the Museums Assistance Program, Department of Canadian Heritage.

Born in Scotland, raised in rural Quebec, and spending his formative years in Ottawa, William Brymner (1855-1925) went on to forge a significant international career. By the late-1870s he was studying and painting in Europe, and exhibiting in the French Salon in the 1880s. He delivered one of the earliest lectures in Canada supporting Impressionist painting in 1897. Once settled in Montréal, Brymner became the core of a creative milieu that made that city the undisputed hub of Canadian art in the first decade of the 20th century. He taught some of Canada’s best-known artists who, under his example, were the first sizeable generation of Canadian artists to study abroad and to advocate for the purchase of Canadian art by collectors and galleries. Brymner’s connection to the WAG goes back to the Gallery’s inaugural exhibition in December 1912.

As President of the Royal Canadian Academy (RCA), Brymner oversaw and contributed to a display of RCA work at the WAG (then known as the Winnipeg Museum of Fine Art). "William Brymner: Artist, Teacher, Colleague" comprises 60 works by Brymner, as well as by peers including Horatio Walker, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, James Wilson Morrice, and Maurice Cullen, and pupils such as Clarence Gagnon, A.Y. Jackson, George Agnew Reid, Edwin Holgate, Lilias Torrance Newton, and Sarah Robertson. It is remarkable that so many distinguished Canadian artists emerged from his classrooms. His openness to new movements and propensity to experiment informed both his painting and his pedagogy.

The WAG was established in 1912 when a group of Winnipeg businessmen, recognizing "the civilizing effects of art," each contributed $200 and rented two rooms in the old Federal Building at the corner of Main and Water Streets. Thus, the WAG was born, becoming the first civic art gallery in Canada. Now approaching its centenary in 2012, the Winnipeg Art Gallery has developed from a small civic gallery to Canada’s sixth largest gallery with an international reputation. As it expanded, the WAG relocated premises several times to accommodate its growing collection, including its former residence in what is now the Manitoba Archives Building on St. Mary Avenue. The 1950s witnessed the beginning of several of the WAG’s specialized collections, including that of Inuit Art. The WAG is now home to the largest public collection of contemporary Inuit art in the world with over 10,730 works. The Decorative Arts collection, another area of specialized collecting, also began in the 1950s since when the WAG has amassed over 4,000 pieces of decorative art, covering diverse media of ceramic, glass, metal, and textiles dating from the 17th century to the mid-20th century. The third specialized collection began considerably later in the 1980s with the designation of the photography collection which now numbers some 1,300 works, largely of contemporary Canadian origin.

Designed by Winnipeg architect Gustavo da Roza, built of pale Manitoba Tyndall stone, the current WAG building rises like the prow of a ship on its own triangular "ocean." It was opened by Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, on September 25, 1971. In addition to eight galleries, the building contains a 320-seat auditorium, a rooftop sculpture garden and restaurant, a research library, a gift shop, and extensive meeting and lecture space. The WAG footprint expanded in October 1995 with the opening of the new WAG Studio Building next door in the renovated Mall Medical Building. Home to the Gallery's art classes, the WAG facility is the largest program of its kind in Canada, offering children and adults art classes taught by professional artists. Visit the museum's website at ... http://wag.ca

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