National Gallery to Open Major Rembrandt Exhibition
The National Gallery of Canada is closed until at least May 20 due to the pandemic lockdown in Ontario, but that didn't stop it from announcing its spring and summer programming Wednesday, including a major Rembrandt show.
Rembrandt in Amsterdam: Creativity and Competition, will include two Indigenous artists from Western Canada to provide context about the impact of colonialism during Rembrandt's era.
They are Ruth Cuthand, a Cree artist in Saskatoon known for beaded versions of viruses like smallpox, which wiped out significant numbers of Indigenous people after contact, and Kent Monkman, a Swampy Cree artist whose panoramic paintings recast historical narratives with an Indigenous spin.
The gallery's director, Sasha Suda, says the gallery wants its programming to be more comprehensive and inclusive.
"Through their works, artists of all eras reflect the realities in which they live, but it is clear that many realities and voices have been ignored over the decades and centuries," she says. "Our role at the National Gallery is not only to present works of art, but to contextualize them and amplify the multitude of voices that make up the visual arts community in Canada and beyond.”
The exhibition explores Rembrandt’s career in the context of Amsterdam's art, bringing his paintings, drawings and prints into dialogue with works by 20 other artists who were his friends, followers and rivals. It highlights the evolution of Rembrandt’s career as an artist, mentor and entrepreneur from his arrival in Amsterdam in 1632 to the mid-1650s.
The show, five years in the making, includes Rembrandt's Heroine from the Old Testament, 1632/33, from the National Gallery’s collection, as well as The Blinding of Samson, 1636, from the collection of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, and Landscape with Stone Bridge from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
The exhibition was conceived by Stephanie Dickey, an art history professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., and Jochen Sander, the vice-director of the Städel Museum.
Also included in the show are works by Montreal-based Skawennati (Kanien’keha:ka and Italian-Canadian) and Toronto-based Greg Staats (Kanien’kehaka) as well as Canadian Congolese artist Moridja Kitenge Banza, who is based in Montreal.
The gallery also announced commissions by Toronto-born artist Tau Lewis and American artist Rashid Johnson; a show featuring some 230 prints from the collection of Jonathan Meakins and Jacqueline McClaran; and the display of a monumental photographic work by Quebec artist Geneviève Cadieux on the gallery’s exterior façade.
Tickets for the Rembrandt show will go on sale once public health officials determine it is safe for the gallery to reopen. For more information, visit gallery.ca.
Source: National Gallery of Canada
