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Art Canada Institute

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Art Canada Institute is a bilingual, non-profit research organization that aims to promote and support the study of Canadian art history.[1][2] It has been described as “a comprehensive, multi-tiered, online-based resource for the general public on Canadian art history."[3] The Art Canada Institute's pillars of programming include: The Canadian Online Art Book Project, The Canadian Art Library Series, The Canadian Schools Art Education Program, The Redefining Canadian Art History Fellowship Program, the Art Canada Institute weekly newsletter, and public art talks.[4][5][6][7]

History

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Established in 2012, the Art Canada Institute is a non-governmental initiative spearheaded by Founder and Executive Director Sara Angel, C.M..[2] A Trudeau Scholar and arts journalist with a background in publishing, Angel intended to address what she viewed as an absence of accessible and inclusive material on Canadian visual culture through the creation of the ACI, which has been described as "a comprehensive, multi-tiered, online-based resource for the general public on Canadian art history."[3]

Angel gained the support of John Fraser, who was the master of Massey College in 2010, the year she began her PhD at the University of Toronto.[3] Fraser felt the ACI's goals were in harmony with Vincent Massey's vision of "the coming together of town and gown,"[2] and Fraser himself would later become the Institute's Founding Chair.[8]

Angel continued to build support over the next year and a half, but it was only after she was named a Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholar and was awarded a generous grant, which she put towards the fledgling ACI, that the Institute became a reality.[2] Since that time the ACI has taken shape and acquired a board of directors, an institute advisory committee, a book project advisory committee, a commissioning editor and a list of over 50 contributing writers.[9] Among ACI's past and present Directors are Gerald McMaster, O.C., Jon S. Dellandrea, C.M. (Chair Emeritus), Charlotte Gray, C.M. (Chair Emeritus), Kiki Delaney, C.M. (Chair Emeritus), Jalynn H. Bennett, C.M., and Roy Heenan, O.C.. In 2023, Angel received an Order of Canada “for her significant contributions to Canadian art history as a visual arts journalist and founder of the Art Canada Institute.”[10]

In its aim to create a central, online, and contemporary resource for Canadian art history, the Art Canada Institute has brought together art historians, curators, and visual culture experts in the creation of original scholarship that reflects "the people, themes and topics that have defined Canada's visual arts heritage."[11] ACI is currently supported through private and corporate donations and is a registered Canadian charity.[12]

Programs

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The Online Canadian Art Book Project

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In November 2013, the ACI launched its inaugural program the Online Canadian Art Book Project with the release of Jack Chambers: Life and Work by Mark A. Cheetham, the first in a series of free online e-books.[11] The project is encyclopedic in nature and meant for a general audience, with authors who include art historians and curators from across Canada, contributing original scholarship that addresses subjective topics such as an artist's significance.[13] To date, ACI has published 60 online art books, reaching millions of online readers.[14][4] The Canadian Online Art Book Project includes books on artists from geographically diverse regions of Canada, such as Annie Pootoogook, Takao Tanabe, Emily Carr, Norval Morrisseau, Mary Pratt, Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald, and Françoise Sullivan.[15]

Intended to be accessible and inclusive, each volume is published in English and French and in multiple formats, all of which can be downloaded for free on the ACI website.[1] Institutional partnerships with cultural heritage institutions across Canada afforded the ACI a wealth of material and every edition is well illustrated with reproductions of major works and archival objects, making materials that had been "hidden away in vaults or perhaps able to be seen only at specific galleries" available to a wider audience.[16]

While many of the artists in the series–including Joyce Wieland, Yves Gaucher, Pitseolak Ashoona, Prudence Heward and Harold Town –are considered "seminal figures in Canadian art,"[17] the Canadian Online Art Book Project also aims to address "holes in Canadian art history"[18] by featuring artists absent from the mainstream narrative. In an interview founder Angel explains that the ACI means to "redefine the canon"[9] by providing "a balance between well-known artists, such as Michael Snow, and artists who should be household names but are not, such as Kathleen Munn," a painter who was highly respected in her time, but is now on the fringes of the Canadian art historical canon.[18] Recent books in the Art Canada Institute's series on individual artists include: Betty Goodwin: Life & Work (2024) by Jessica Bradley, Carl Beam: Life & Work (2024) by Anong Migwans Beam, Takao Tanabe: Life & Work (2023) by Ian M. Thom, Sophie Pemberton: Life & Work (2023) by Katharine Bridge, Alfred Pellan: Life & Work (2023) by Maria Rosa Lehmann, Marion Nicoll: Life & Work (2023) by Catharine Mastin, and Jin-me Yoon: Life & Work (2023) by Ming Tiampo.

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ACI’s Canadian Art Library Series is the first in the nation to focus on monographs about Canadian artists. Titles in this series are print editions of books selected from ACI’s digital library. Up to four titles are published annually.

Notable titles in the Canadian Art Library Series include Revision and Resistance: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2020) by Kent Monkman. With contributions from an array of art historians and curators,[19] this book records Monkman's creation of his critically heralded diptych at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.[20] A second ACI book by Monkman, Being Legendary at Royal Ontario Museum: Confronting Colonialism, Rethinking History (2022), was described as “the most provocative of [the] year's Indigenous titles” and named one of the Best Art Books of the Year by Galleries West Magazine.[21]

Public Art Talks

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Another way that the ACI fulfills its mandate to make "Canadian art history a contemporary conversation,"[18] is through its series of public lectures. All events in this series are open to the public and spotlight the work of authors of ACI’s online art books, often in conversation with other respected scholars and experts in Canadian art history.  Previous talks have focused on diverse topics, such as the lives and legacies of Canadian women artists and the subject of art fraud in Canada.[22]

At an ACI Public Talk in 2021, the artist Kent Monkman spoke for the first time in a live interview about the production of the monumental diptych, mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People), commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[23][24] and how the work relates to that museum's North American Indigenous, American, and European art collections, “including challenging such works as the iconic 1851 painting Washington Crossing the Delaware by German-American artist Emanuel Leutze.”[25]

The Canadian Schools Art Education Program

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Created to complement ACI's Canadian Online Art Book Project, The Canadian Schools Art Education Program provides expert-authored teacher resource guides for primary and secondary school educators to facilitate the study of a wide range of subjects through the work of Canadian artists. ACI has published over 50 guides to date, including resources on Kazuo Nakamura and mathematical concepts, developed in partnership with the teacher-based initiative The Art of Math; Iljuwas Bill Reid and ways of knowing; Prudence Heward and early 20th-century women; and Canadian artists and climate change, developed in partnership with the educational non-profit Green Learning.[26][27] The program also offers Independent Student Learning Activities, which can be distributed directly to students and support learning online and at home. All content is open-source and available to audiences free of charge in English and French.

Each year the Art Canada Institute Education Program presents the Canadian Art Inspiration Student Challenge. As stated in Canadian Teacher Magazine, Students in Grades 7 through 12 are invited to create original artworks in any medium inspired by the nation's leading artists. Cash prizes of $500 for first-place winners and $250 for honourable mentions are awarded in different age categories.[22]

In 2023, the ACI Education Program won the Ontario Art Education Association‘s Community Art Educator Award.[28]

Friday Newsletter

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ACI’s weekly Friday newsletter keeps readers informed of the organization’s latest programming, and offers curated selections of Canadian artworks that illuminate significant moments in Canadian history as well as current events in the art world.[29]

The Redefining Canadian Art History Fellowship Program

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In 2022 ACI launched The Redefining Canadian Art History Fellowship Program to create a more inclusive art history by supporting studies on Canadian and Indigenous artists whose lives and works are underrepresented. The inaugural research fellows were announced in June 2022.

Bibliography of ACI Titles

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Published Online Art Book Titles[30]

SEASON 1: 2013–2014

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SEASON 2: 2014–2015

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SEASON 3: 2015–2016

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SEASON 4: 2016–2017

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SEASON 5: 2017–2018

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SEASON 6: 2018–2019

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SEASON 7: 2019–2020

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SEASON 8: 2020–2021

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SEASON 9: 2021–2022

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SEASON 10: 2022–2023

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SEASON 11: 2023–2024

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  • 2023: Photography in Canada, 1839–1989: An Illustrated History by Sarah Bassnett and Sarah Parsons
  • 2023: Halifax Art & Artists: An Illustrated History by Ray Cronin
  • 2023: Sophie Pemberton: Life & Work by Kathryn Bridge
  • 2023: Takao Tanabe: Life & Work by Ian Thom
  • 2024: Margaret Watkins: Life & Work by Mary O’Connor

SEASON 12: 2024–2025

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References

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  1. ^ a b MacQueen, Ken (17 November 2013). "Meet Canada's first celebrity photographer: William Notman, along with a host of forgotten artists, gets his 21st-century moment". Maclean's. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d Adams, James (22 November 2013). "How the Art Canada Institute is breathing digital life into Canadian art". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  3. ^ a b c Balzer, David (27 November 2013). "Project Illuminates Canadian Art History for 21st Century Audience". Canadian Art. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  4. ^ a b Star, Christine Sismondo Special to the (2019-04-28). "These books aim to teach Canadians about their own art". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2024-01-21.
  5. ^ Badin, Paola Aron (2023-11-21). "ACI: The Redefining Canadian Art History Fellowship Program". UAAC-AAUC. Retrieved 2024-01-21.
  6. ^ "ACI Projects & Programs". Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien. Retrieved 2024-01-21.
  7. ^ "The Redefining Canadian Art History Fellowship Program". Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien. Retrieved 2024-01-21.
  8. ^ "Who We Are, ACI Masthead". Art Canada Institute. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  9. ^ a b Dale, Stephen (13 January 2016). "Tom Thomson: Life and Work brings a Canadian icon into the Digital Age". NGC Magazine. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  10. ^ White, Murray (21 November 2013). "Art Canada Institute: A true north art history, online and free". The Star. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  11. ^ a b Curcio, Tony (9 December 2013). "The new Art Canada Institute releases free Online Art Books". Graphic Arts Magazine. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
  12. ^ "ACIAC - Quick View". Canada Revenue Agency. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  13. ^ Baldassi, Julie (25 November 2013). "Bringing Canadian art books online with the Art Canada Institute". Quill and Quire. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
  14. ^ Mavrikakis, Nicolas (2020-12-31). "Kent Monkman au MET, un dialogue historique". Le Devoir (in French). Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  15. ^ "The Canadian Online Art Book Project". Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  16. ^ "Canadian art e-book series spotlights homegrown artists". CBC News. 13 December 2013. Retrieved 24 September 2015.
  17. ^ Whyte, Murray (21 November 2013). "Art Canada Institute: A true north art history, online and free". The Star. Retrieved 10 September 2015.
  18. ^ a b c Goodden, Sky (17 December 2013). "Sara Angel Brings Canadian Art History Into the 21st Century". Blouin ArtInfo Canada. Retrieved 10 September 2015.
  19. ^ Art Canada Institute, ed. (2020). Revision and resistance: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Kent Monkman. Toronto: Art Canada Institute. ISBN 978-1-4871-0225-8. OCLC 1129443203.
  20. ^ Cotter, Holland (Dec 20, 2019). "A Cree Artist Redraws History". The New York Times.
  21. ^ Priegert, Portia (2022-12-12). "Art Books 2022". Galleries West. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  22. ^ a b "The Art Canada Institute is proud to present public art lectures across Canada on the important figures and icons of Canadian art history". Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  23. ^ "Kent Monkman Live: The Making of a Masterpiece". Akimbo. 2024-10-18. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  24. ^ "Kent Monkman: The Making of a Masterpiece". arthistory.utoronto.ca. 2020-02-06. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  25. ^ "Kent Monkman: The Making of a Masterpiece". Partners in Art. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  26. ^ "Art Canada Institute". Canadian Network For Arts & Learning. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  27. ^ "The Canadian Schools Art Education Program". Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  28. ^ "Awards – OAEA". Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  29. ^ "Newsletters". Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien. Retrieved 2024-10-18.
  30. ^ "Welcome to the Art Canada Institute". Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien. Retrieved 2024-10-21.
  31. ^ Rutherford, Kate (Sep 30, 2024). "New book explores the art and activism of pioneering Indigenous artist Carl Beam". CBC.
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