Ian Thom Retires from Vancouver Art Gallery

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Ian Thom (photo by Pardeep Singh)

Ian M. Thom is retiring at the end of June following a 30-year career with the Vancouver Art Gallery as senior curator – historical.

Thom, who has worked on more than 100 exhibitions at the gallery and across Canada, is considered a leading expert on British Columbia art and has contributed to the growth of the permanent collection.

He helped facilitate the entry of 119 works by original members of the Group of Seven, including major works by Arthur Lismer and A.Y. Jackson. He also brought into the collection or added significantly to the representation of works by such artists as John Vanderpant, Beatrice Lennie, Jock Macdonald and Lilias Farley.

Within the gallery’s Indigenous art collection, Thom was key to the entry of 32 historical objects and several important contemporary works. He worked closely with the late collector Ron Longstaffe, who donated close to 800 works to the gallery before his death in 2003. Thom was directly responsible for arranging the entry of 195 works from the collection Longstaffe gave to the gallery, including 11 works by Betty Goodwin and two major paintings by Bertram Charles Binning.

His exhibition highlights include the Vancouver Art Gallery's 2002 retrospective of EJ Hughes; a 2005 retrospective of Takao Tanabe, a collaboration between the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria that later toured the country; and Gordon Smith: The Black Paintings (2018).

In conjunction with the 2010 Winter Olympics, Thom curated Leonardo Da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man. Also notable is the 2006 travelling exhibition Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon, presented by the National Gallery of Canada and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Thom contributed to 78 publications, and is the author of 13 books, including Challenging Traditions: Contemporary First Nations Art of the Northwest Coast (2009), a major survey of 40 contemporary Indigenous artists of the Northwest; Art BC: Masterworks from British Columbia (2000), the first comprehensive history of the province's visual art; and Andy Warhol: Images (1995), an overview of the American artist’s most influential works.

Thom was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2008 and received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

Director Kathleen Bartels says Thom has a breadth of knowledge about Canadian historical art that is unmatched in the country.

"His dedication as a historian, lecturer, writer and curator has been invaluable to the gallery and has had a lasting impact on the Canadian visual art landscape,” she says. “We congratulate Ian on his retirement and look forward to continuing to work with him on special projects and research.”

Thom said he is proud to have been a part of the gallery's curatorial team. "Looking back on the exhibitions of the last 30 years, it has been an honour to highlight significant artists by putting their works in front of new audiences and adding to wider interest in visual art.” 

Source: Vancouver Art Gallery - April 20, 2018