Current & Upcoming

John Hansler: a life collecting
18 May – 5 August 2017

John Hansler graduated from McMaster University in 1956 and began collecting art the following year. In 2016, he offered his entire collection of nearly 100 works to the McMaster Museum of Art.  This exhibition presents selections from his generous gift, focusing on his primary interest in post-1950 Canadian art and reflecting his enthusiasm for and support of artists he collected in depth.

Included in the exhibition are works by Walter Bachinski, Paul-Émile Borduas, Ulysee Comtois, David Craven, L.L. FitzGerald, John Hartman, Harold Klunder, J.W.G (Jock) MacDonald, Kazuo Nakamura, Harold Town, and Tony Urquhart.

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photo: Kazuo Nakamura, Central Seven, C. 1961. Oil on canvas. Gift of John Hansler

Ann Kipling and Takao Tanabe
18 May – 5 August 2017

Ann Kipling and Takao Tanabe are senior British Columbia based artists who have made substantial contributions to the visual arts in Canada.

This exhibition presents works by the two artists recently gifted to the McMaster Museum of Art. It includes sixteen Ann Kipling drawings and etchings, donated by Toronto collector Christopher Varley in 2014, and six Takao Tanabe works on paper, donated by the artist in 2015. The latter were included in the retrospective of Tanabe’s work presented at the Museum in 2012.

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Liss Platt:  a CONSTANT decade
4 May – 19 August 2017

This exhibition is a “retrospective” of Liss Platt’s Constant photographic series and related videoworks, 2006 - 2016.

Liss Platt brings elements of the everyday, along with personal and autobiographical content, into a conceptual art practice. The particular landscape represented in the Constant series is a place she has been photographing for over ten years. She is interested in the process of sustained looking, particularly at something that is familiar, and what occurs through an accumulation of images. She is also intrigued by the tension between what changes in the scene and what stays the same.

Liss Platt is a mid-career media artist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia at McMaster University. Her works have been shown nationally and internationally.  She is also a co-member of the “Shake-n’-Make” project with Hamilton-based writer and maker Claudia B. Manley. Liss Platt is represented by MKG127 in Toronto.

ARTIST’S TALK & RECEPTION:
at b Contemporary gallery, 226 James St North, Hamilton
Sunday, June 4, 2017 from 2 - 4 pm
Liss Platt’s formal presentation, centred on her Constant series, will begin at 2:30 pm. Join us, meet the artist and enjoy light refreshments.
MMA in the Community Event
NEW! Watch the video of Liss Platt's Talk

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Image:  Liss Platt, Constant: Vertical, 2012, C-Print, edition of 5, 2012. Courtesy of MKG127 in Toronto.

Coyote School
8 June – 19 August 2017
Curator:  Rhéanne Chartrand, Aboriginal Curatorial Resident, MMA

Coyote School presents contemporary works by eight mid-career Indigenous artists who acknowledge the influence of senior Indigenous artists on the development of their own artistic practice.

Joi Arcand
Sonny Assu
Jason Baerg
Jordan Bennett
Christian Chapman
Amy Malbeuf
Meryl McMaster
Bear Witness aka EhrenThomas

Opening Reception: Thursday, June 8, 6 - 8 pm
6:30 - Opening Remarks by Elders and Curator
7:00 - Musical Performance by acclaimed, Indigenous composer and vocal artist Jeremy Dutcher. A classically trained operatic tenor, Dutcher blends his Wolastoq First Nation roots into the music he creates.

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image: Meryl McMaster, Time’s Gravity (detail), 2015, Archival pigment print on watercolour paper, edition 3 of 3, 76.2 cm x 114.3 cm.  Collection of the Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto Scarborough

Simon Glass: The Ten Commandments / Prohibited Weapons and The Thirteen Attributes of God

17 August – 2 December 2017

An exhibition of Simon Glass’s photo-hybrid series The Ten Commandments/Prohibited Weapons recently donated to the McMaster Museum of Art (a 2016 gift) and his series, The Thirteen Attributes of God, from the Art Gallery of Hamilton collection.
Simon Glass is an artist and educator based in Toronto. In his artistic practice, archival and original photographic imagery is combined with mystical, biblical and liturgical Hebrew.

Image: Installation view of The Ten Commandments / Prohibited Weapons suite, 2005. Courtesy of the artist

Struck by Likening: The Power & Discontents of Artworld Analogies
17 August – 2 December 2017
Guest curator:  Mark A. Cheetham

Struck by Likening explores commonplace declarations such as “Tom Thomson is the Van Gogh of Canada” and Norval Morrisseau is “the Picasso of the North” and the issues raised by such comparisons. These include national aspiration, genius, gender, anachronism, inter-media comparison, humour, and cultural appropriation.

Works of art in the exhibition are drawn from the historical, modern and contemporary collection of the McMaster Museum of Art, and loans from the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Museum London and the Corkin Gallery, Toronto.

Image above includes details of paintings (clockwise from top left):
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853 – 1890) Still Life: Ginger Pot and Onions, 1885, oil on canvas, Gift of Herman H. Levy O.B.E., 1984
Tom Thomson (Canadian 1877 – 1917) The Birch Grove, Autumn 1915–16, oil on canvas, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Gift of Roy Cole in memory of his parents, Matthew and Annie Bell Gilmore
William Kurelek (Canadian 1927-1977) Dinnertime on the Prairies, 1963, oil on masonite, Wentworth House Art Committee purchase, McMaster University, 1963, © The Estate of William Kurelek, courtesy of the Wynick/Tuck Gallery, Toronto

A Cultivating Journey: The Herman Levy Legacy
1 September – 9 December, 2017

This exhibition examines and celebrates the collection of significant European historical and modern art donated to the McMaster Museum of Art by Hamilton businessman Dr. Herman H. Levy, O.B.E. in 1984. Featured are paintings by Claude Monet, Gustave Caillebotte, Gustave Courbet, Camille Pissarro, Chaim Soutine, J.M.W. Turner, Vincent van Gogh and many more.

Image: Claude Monet, Waterloo Bridge, Effet de Soleil, 1903, Oil on canvas, Collection of McMaster Museum of Art, Gift of Herman Levy, Esq., O.B.E., 1984

This touring exhibition, including a forthcoming publication, is generously supported by the Museums Assistance Program, Canadian Heritage.

Domestic Vessels from the Greek and Roman World
Ongoing
This new antiquities exhibition presents a picture of daily domestic life in the ancient world through objects familiar to Greek and Roman households. All vessels are drawn from McMaster Museum of Art's permanent collection.

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Curated by Dr. Spencer Pope
Ongoing

This is an exhibition of twenty-two coins, mostly from the Roman Republic, dating back to Alexander the Great. They are significant for both their value to McMaster's Teaching Collection and their provenance. The Collection was generously gifted to McMaster University by McMaster astronomy professor Ethan Vishniac, who inherited it from his grandfather, renowned photographer Roman Vishniac.

Image: Vishniac 12: Roman Orichalcum Coin of Emperor Galba (AD 68-69)
OBVERSE: Laureate head of Galba, facing right, "IMP SER GALBA CAES AUG TR P".
REVERSE: Libertas (deity representing Liberty) standing left, holding pileus and rod, "LIBERTAS PUBLICA SC".