The Visual Arts Collection of McGill University is on display across its campuses, in public spaces, corridors, classrooms, and administrative spaces. Thanks to the generosity of donors, the Collection has grown from its modest beginnings as a collection of University portraits into one that now includes paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, and decorative arts created by Canadian, Indigenous, and international artists.
Sometimes referred to as a “museum without walls” because of its unique mode of display, the Visual Arts Collection allows students, faculty, staff, visitors, as well as the community at large, to encounter extraordinary works of art by chance. These include a sculpture by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney on lower campus, a Roy Lichtenstein tapestry in the Arts Building, a large oil painting by Ojibwa artist Norval Morrisseau on display in the McLennan Library’s Visible Storage Gallery, and a mural by important modernist Canadian artist Marian Dale Scott in the Strathcona Anatomy and Dentistry Building.
“The Collection is for everyone to enjoy,” says Gwendolyn Owens, Director, Visual Arts Collection. “It also gives students in art history and curatorial studies an opportunity to gain first-hand experience cataloguing and researching works of art under the direction of museum professionals.”
With holdings of some 3,000 works of art, and expanding every year, the Collection has recently grown in other significant ways. In 2013, the University made a commitment to professionalize the Visual Arts Collection, which had long been managed by volunteers and part-time employees. A further step was taken in 2015, when the Collection and its staff became part of the McGill Library. In 2018, a Visible Storage Gallery with a salon-style sampling of art from across the Collection was created on the fourth floor of the McLennan Library Building. This modest space has rapidly become a destination for the McGill community and for visitors.
The Visual Arts Collection has come to play an important educational role, acting as a unique teaching resource that offers students and faculty first-hand access to original works of art. A year-round internship and fellowship program provides undergraduate and graduate students with research opportunities and comprehensive training in museum practice, offering some of the most sought-after extra-curricular and professionalization opportunities on campus.
“The Collection also functions as a link between the University and Montreal’s dynamic arts and culture communities,” says Owens. “We work with the city, and with museums and festivals, and offer new public programming every year.”
McGill is committed to raising $3 million to create a new art exhibition gallery that meets professional museum standards – the first ever of its kind at McGill. Housed in the reimagined Library, the new space will provide greater access to contemporary and historic artworks, curated and showcased in a climate-controlled, secure space.
“This inspirational space will serve as a creative laboratory, enabling McGill to play an enhanced role in art scholarship, with original exhibitions attracting national attention and outside visitors,” says Owens.
Expanded space for closed storage, and for research and teaching, will ensure the continued improvement of the Collection’s care and management, as well as the ongoing growth of its unique training program. “Here, the next-generation of museum professionals will begin their careers,” says Owens.