
Stan Douglas Klatsassin, 2006 (still) single-channel colour video with sound Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery
purchased with funds from the Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisitions Fund and the Jean MacMillan Southam Art Acquisition Endowment Fund

Hong Chun Park Seoul III, 2003 (detail) chromogenic prints, paperboard on acrylic sheet Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery Gift of the Artist

Angela Grossmann Broken Mirror, 2011 acrylic, collage on textile Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery Gift of the Artist
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View List of 2015 Acquisitions
2014/2015 ACQUISITIONS
From July 2014 to June 2015, the Vancouver
Art Gallery acquired 234 artworks through purchase and donation, bringing the total number
of works in the collection to 11,617.
The Gallery has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to British Columbia artists
and in 2014/15 purchased many new works, including those by promising local artists Kim
Kennedy Austin, Julia Feyrer, Babak Golkar, Una Knox and Dan Starling, all acquired with
the assistance of the Audain Emerging Artists Acquisition Fund. The additional purchase of a
monumental new oil on canvas painting by emerging local artist Andrew Dadson was made
possible by a generous donation from Phil Lind, while donations from Rick Erickson and Tim
Kerr helped facilitate the purchase of works by the renowned Haida artist Robert Davidson.
The proceeds of the Jean MacMillan Southam Major Art Purchase Fund contributed towards
the purchase of Klatsassin (2006) by Stan Douglas, a major video work that relates directly to
the history of British Columbia. Additional purchases of work by Myfanwy MacLeod, Evelyn Roth
and Ron Terada were made with the Art Acquisition Fund, while the assistance of the Canada
Council for the Arts matching funds grant program contributed to purchase of large-scale
paintings by Vancouver artists Landon Mackenzie and Neil Wedman.
Donations of artwork are essential to the growth of the permanent collection and the Gallery
is grateful to all of the donors who contributed to the Gallery’s holdings in the last year. The
Gallery was especially thrilled to receive a donation of oil sketches by Group of Seven painter
J.E.H.MacDonald from Ephry and Melvin Merkur in December of 2014. This donation substantially
bolstered the Gallery’s holdings of historical Canadian art, as did the donation of
a major BC landscape painting by E.J. Hughes from H. Richard Whittall and his family, and
Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa’s finalization of their Promised Gift of a Sisiutl headdress
by a Nuu-chah-nulth artist. Representation of Canada’s First Nations artists was also
strengthened by a donation of drawings by the Inuit artists Napachie and Annie Pootoogook
from long-time supporters of the Gallery Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft.
The Gallery continued to develop its exceptional collection of photography in the 2014/15
fiscal year through many donations of important historical and contemporary photographs.
The Rossy Family Foundation very generously supported the purchase of 33 photographs by
Harry Morey Callahan, helping to make the Gallery’s collection the largest of Callahan’s work
in Canada and the second largest in the world. Donations of historical photographs by John
Vanderpant, Robert Frank, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Alfred Stieglitz and Giorgio Sommer further added to the Gallery’s representation of the history of photography generally, and the gift of
an important photograph and original negative of Emily Carr in her Studio (1939) by Harold
Mortimer-Lamb marked an important bridge between the two great strengths of the Gallery’s
collection: photography and the work of Emily Carr. The Gallery is grateful to Claudia Beck and
Andrew Gruft, Bill Jeffries and The Vanderpant Collection for these donations. Significant donations
of contemporary photographs were also made by Thomas H.Bjarnason, Robert Keziere
and Coleen and Howard Nemtin. Most contemporary photography entered the collection this
year through donations from the artists themselves: Robert Burley donated fifteen photographs
from his The Disappearance of Darkness series; Karin Bubaš donated eight photographs from
her Ivy House series; and individual photographic works were donated by Christos Dikeakos,
James Nizam and Hong Chun Park. We are particularly grateful to artists who donate their
own work to the permanent collection. In addition to the photographers mentioned above, in
the last year the Gallery’s collection of contemporary art also greatly benefited from donations
made by the following artists: Angela Grossmann, Shelagh Keeley, Keith Langergraber, Landon
Mackenzie, Alex Morrison, Evelyn Roth, Kara Uzelman and Lawrence Weiner, who continues
to contribute to his poster archive with annual donations to the Gallery.
Ten drawings by the Royal Art Lodge, a group of fabric sculptures by former Royal Art
Lodge members Drue Langlois and Michael Dumontier, a stoneware piece by Mona Hatoum
as well as a significant print by Ed Rucha were all generously donated by Monty James Cooper.
Donald Ellis gifted the complex hide and thread sculpture Constrictor (2010) by Brian Jungen,
and Phil Lind donated Ron Terada’s iconic sign Entering City of Vancouver (2002). Other important
donors included David Allison and Chris Nicolson, Erica Claus, Kate Clifford, Neil Campbell,
Sean B.Murphy, the family of Stanley E. Read, Evann Siebans and Keith Doyle, The Warhol
Foundation and a Private Collection in Vancouver.
We are enormously grateful to all of our
donors, without whose generosity the growth of Gallery’s permanent collection would not
be possible—thank you!
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