50 YEARS OF GLENBOW HISTORY
Museum opens vault for new exhibit
When people mark a milestone birthday, it’s often a combination of celebration, nostalgic reflection and taking inventory of all that’s come before.
When Melanie Kjorlien and her team at Glenbow began preparing for the 50th anniversary this weekend of the Calgary museum, the same kind of thinking came into play.
“We asked our librarian Lindsay Moir what they charged in 1966,” says Kjorlien, Glenbow’s vice-president of access, collections and exhibitions. “She said it was 50 cents, with kids under six free — that sounded like a good idea.”
From Saturday to Wednesday, Glenbow will charge just 50 cents general admission, with kids under six free, to see a show entitled “Glenbow at 50: A popup exhibition of 50 extraordinary works of art” (for hours and other info go to glenbow.org).
On Wednesday, Kjorlien gives me and photographer Ted Rhodes a sneak peek of the exhibition prior to its Friday opening.
While workers are busy mounting various artworks in the exhibit’s two rooms, the main wall at its entrance is still a blank space.
“That’s where the Lawren Harris painting will go,” she explains of the Glenbow’s newest acquisition, one of three paintings by the Group of Seven artist recently donated to the museum by Imperial Oil.
The generous donation was part of a more than $3-million collection of works the Calgarybased energy company spread across the country after relocating to another location within the city. It is also the company’s nod to Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017, Imperial Oil’s president and CEO Rich Kruger said in a recent news release. The company is also helping fund the five-day 50 cent admission deal.
“While we do have Group of Seven works in our collection we don’t have a huge number, so we’re always looking to increase it,” she says as we stand by the wall where Harris’ Algoma Waterfall painting, circa 1925, will hang Saturday morning. “It is such an important part of Canadian history and people love the Group of Seven — we’re pretty grateful to Imperial Oil.”
The exhibit includes pieces by renowned local artists Chris Cran and Ron Moppett, along with that of artists no longer with us, including Charlie Russell, Ted Godwin and Sybil Andrews, a famed B.C. printmaker.
The exhibition is the result of a search through the Glenbow’s more than 30,000 items in its collection, with a committee tasked to zero in on the 50 works best suited for the 50th anniversary show.
“We wanted to have a range of work — historical, modernist, contemporary — to really give people an idea of the breadth of our collection,” says Kjorlien. Still, such a mandate could fill four or five museums.
“We also wanted to show works that haven’t been seen by many before, because that’s one of the criticisms of museums, that there is all the stuff in the vaults that people don’t get to see,” she adds.
This is why visitors will see works such as Chris Cran’s The Peaceable Kingdom, which features an adorable puppy dog’s face, rather than such wellknown paintings as his 1985 SelfPortrait Watching a Man About to Shoot Himself in the Foot.
While the exhibition features work by American and international artists, it remains heavy on western Canadian artists, including Emily Carr, famed around the world for her forest landscapes. Some visitors, however, might question why a few prominent area artists didn’t make the cut.
Kjorlien says that’s because some of those artists were featured recently at the museum, in shows including Made in Calgary. “We really wanted to bring out pieces people haven’t seen for a long time,” she says. “We wanted to have a range of media, we wanted a balance between female and male artists — we came to the table with a long list of about 130 before we narrowed it to 50.”
“There will be people who say why didn’t they include this and why did they choose that?” says Kjorlien of the final choices, which received the blessing of Glenbow president and CEO Donna Livingstone. “We had some of those same conversations.”
She is confident that both Glenbow’s longtime regulars and newcomers alike will be engaged and entertained by the 50th pop-up show and other exhibits currently on, not just the 1966era admission fee for the five days of celebration marking its golden anniversary.
“It’s really special for us to share what’s in our vault with Calgarians,” she says. “I’m hoping we get tons of people down here to celebrate with us.”