Western Canada’s art magazine since 2002
9 January 2024 Vol 9 No 1 ISSN 2561-3316 © 2024
Shelley Boettcher
From the Editor
Happy new year! I’ve been lolling about for the past couple of weeks: walking our naughty puppy, reading books, eating cheese and drinking Champagne. Now it’s time to get back to work, to look ahead and make plans for 2024.
On that list: art, of course.
If you’re an artist or art collector, or you dream of being one, you’ll want to go through Douglas Maclean’s Auction Report Fall 2023, a colourful and complete romp through art auction results across Canada in 2023. You’ll get an insider's look at trends in collecting, buying and selling across the country — and you’ll read up on many record-breaking sales that took place, too. (A few hints: Riopelle, Pellan, Janvier.)
Also in this issue, Ottawa journalist Becky Rynor dives into the life and work of the late artist Nick Sikkuark. A show that took 10 years to assemble, Nick Sikkuark: Humour and Horror is at the National Gallery of Canada through March 24. “It is the first retrospective devoted to this acclaimed Inuit artist’s work and includes more than 100 of his books, drawings, sculptures and paintings that span four decades of a career shaped by growing up on the land,” Rynor writes.
If you haven’t already read about the J.E.H. MacDonald drama, don’t miss it. It’s the stuff of novels and movie scripts: famous art, forgeries, forensics, secrets and mysteries. John Thomson checked out J.E.H. Macdonald? A Tangled Garden, at the Vancouver Art Gallery through May 12. Then, in his story, Digging for Truth, he writes about how and why 10 sketches once attributed to the Group of Seven artist have been determined to be fake. Fascinating stuff.
Next, we take short art stops in Nelson, Regina, Kelowna, Victoria and Montreal. In Nelson, The Hungry Mist (A Névoa Faminta) features the work of Bento Leite, Dyó Potyguara and Simon(e) Pateau at Oxygen Art Centre in Nelson, now through Feb. 3. A dozen of Saskatchewan artist Michael Lonechild’s paintings are at Assiniboia Gallery in Regina until Jan. 12. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria presents In the Flesh: The Nude in Art, Past and Present, on now through March 31, featuring more than 100 artworks by Renoir, Rodin and Picasso alongside works by contemporary Indigenous and Canadian artists. At Kelowna Art Gallery, the touring exhibition, Wolves: The Art of Dempsey Bob, is on now through Feb. 19 and features the powerful work of the West Coast carver as well as photos and stories of his life.
And the inspiring life and art of Françoise Sullivan is the subject of I let rhythms flow, at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, on now through Feb. 18. Sullivan, who turned 100 in 2023, was a member of the Automatistes collective and she signed the Refus global manifesto alongside Paul-Émile Borduas and Jean Paul Riopelle in 1948.
Last but not least, I’d like to say thank you to journalist and editor Paul Gessell, who stepped into Portia Priegert’s shoes as the temporary Galleries West editor last fall and then showed me the ropes, producing several issues of the magazine with me after I started in October. He’s been an invaluable part of the team as a contributor for many years and as he moves back into a writing role, I and the rest of the Galleries West team look forward to working with him on many stories to come.
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE: Douglas MacLean, Becky Rynor, John Thomson
We acknowledge the support of the Government of Alberta Media Fund, the Government of Canada Periodical Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts.
