A stirring affirmation of the female creative voice, Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists of the Modern Moment challenges the notion of the quintessential Canadian artist. Uninvited opens this evening as part of the National Gallery of Canada’s popular Free Thursday Nights. On view until August 20, 2023, the exhibition celebrates the extraordinary talent of women settler and Indigenous artists from the dynamic interwar period, as seen in nearly 200 paintings, photographs, sculptures, baskets and beaded works. Organized by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection with the exceptional support of the National Gallery of Canada, Uninvited also features some 30 works from the Gallery’s collection.
”The National Gallery of Canada is delighted to be the fourth and final stop for the McMichael’s major exhibition devoted to women artists, who paved the way for subsequent generations of women,” said Angela Cassie, Interim Director and CEO, NGC. “Serving all Canadians is part of our core mission. We strive to increase the representation of people from historically underrepresented and excluded communities, including the voices of women artists, to ensure the development, preservation, and presentation of our collection for the learning and enjoyment of generations to come.”
“In the 1920s,’30s, and ’40s, the Canadian art world was in the thrall of the all-male painting collective The Group of Seven, widely celebrated for their depictions of dramatic and sensuously painted unpeopled landscapes,” added exhibition curator Sarah Milroy, Chief Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. “But women artists of the day had other concerns: portraiture, city life, immigrant experience, social injustice, resource extraction, and the cultural ways of Indigenous peoples. Shown together in this exhibition, these works convey a vibrant picture of Canada in a period of sometimes overwhelming change, a complex story with multiple vantage points long obscured in the story of Canadian art.”
In a complementary initiative, the Gallery’s department of Indigenous Ways and Decolonization, in collaboration with its Learning and Community Engagement team, have created an adjacent Ancestors’ Gallery, a ‘show within a show,’ which presents works by once-known Indigenous artists from the NGC’s collection.
The National Gallery of Canada’s presentation of Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment is supported by Reesa Greenberg. PACART is the exclusive transportation provider.
