Canada Council Art Bank

With some 18,000 paintings, sculptures, photographs and prints by over 2,500 artists, the Canada Council Art Bank is home to the largest collection of contemporary Canadian art. The Bank’s mandate, which has remained unchanged since its inception some thirty years ago, is to support and promote Canadian artists by making their works accessible in offices and public spaces across the country. The Art Bank’s treasures are available for rent by corporations, institutions, and government departments and agencies.

Some pieces belonging to the Bank, however, while important from an artistic point of view, are not ideally suited to being part of a "collection in perpetual motion." As a result, the Art Bank has decided to donate a selection of works to public institutions, thus ensuring them wider public exposure. The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal has been chosen as a home for their works by artists Guy Bourassa, Geneviève Cadieux, Serge Cournoyer, Tom Dean, Jean-Marie Delavalle, Peter Gnass, Gilles Mihalcean, Laurent Pilon and Irene F. Whittome.

Of the thirteen works donated to the Musée last December (listed in full below), some have already been seen in our galleries. For example, Geneviève Cadieux’s Séquence n^o 6, 1980, was included in the major solo exhibition of her work held at the Musée in the spring of 1993. In this large, photographic wall piece the artist explores the notion of identity by representing huge pairs of eyes that mesmerize spectators and plunge them into an unsettling relationship between watcher and watched. Gilles Mihalcean’s poetic sculpture Saint-Placide la nuit, 1980, has also been on view at the Musée, as part of a solo exhibition of his work presented from October 1995 to January 1996. By assembling a range of diverse materials (plaster, glass, clay, wood), Michalcean succeeds in conveying the mildness of a summer night in Saint-Placide, a small village on the shores of lac des Deux Montagnes. Only three elements can be identified in this assemblage of black forms: a crescent moon, a star and a huge mosquito! The main feature of most of the thirteen works being donated by the Art Bank, their monumental size, has made them unsuitable for rental by government departments and agencies. The two works by Irene Whittome, for instance, Watertable, 1975-1980, and Land Vessels 5, 1977-1980, are part of the grandiose installation entitled Vancouver, a metaphorical representation of a city open to the sea. In this piece, the Vancouver-born artist has created an environment whose impact is first and foremost physical: a world of volumes and neutral colours spreads out before the viewer, paralleliped constructions evoke buildings, a succession of masses and voids creates a kind of imaginary city through which the spectator can wander like a tourist.

The Musée’s collection has been considerably enriched by the addition of these works. And we must offer a dual thank you: first to the artists themselves, who chose the Musée, and second to the Art Bank of the Canada Council for the Arts, donor of this group of masterworks by Quebec and Canadian artists.

Guy Bourassa
Portrait(s) du Prince, 1991
Newspaper, shirt collar, marble tiles, glass vase, photographs, shoes and various materials
245 x 220 x 33 cm (ensemble)

Guy Bourassa
Tout d’abord il y a bleu, 1993
Wood, steel and coats
110 x 255 x 10 cm (ensemble)

Geneviève Cadieux
Séquence n^o 6, 1980
Photographic emulsion on metal, printing ink, masking tape, metal rod, nails and bolts
132 x 488 cm

Serge Cournoyer
Zéphire, 1966
Plexiglas and steel
167 x 120 x 77 cm

Tom Dean
Excerpts, from a Description of the Universe, 1985
4 tables, clay, cast iron and various objects
120 x 193 x 91.5 cm (each table)

Jean-Marie Delavalle
Track 1, 1969
Steel
32 x 500 x 381 cm (ensemble)

Jean-Marie Delavalle
Field Sculpture No. 2, 1973 - 1974
Steel (8 elements)
30.5 x 46.5 x 31 cm (each element)

Peter Gnass
Progression d’un polygone dans le coin, 1978
Graphite on paper and steel
4 drawings: 66 x 99.1 cm (each); sculpture: 41.9 x 127 x 167.6 cm

Gilles Mihalcean
L’Été, 1980
Metal and wood
164 x 90 x 81 cm

Gilles Mihalcean
Saint-Placide la nuit, 1980
Painted plaster, glass, clay, wood
54 x 244 x 244 cm

Laurent Pilon
Cumulatif n^o 2, 1986
Polyester resin, metal powder, plaster powder, sand, fibreglass, cotton and cardboard
203 x 180 cm

Irene F. Whittome
Vancouver-Watertable, 1975-1980
Wood and encaustic
46 x 91 x 137 cm

Irene F. Whittome
Land Vessels 5, 1977-1980
Wood and encaustic (5 elements)
48.2 x 236.2 x 35.5 cm (each element)