Vancouver Art Gallery's New Acquisitions

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Left: Sarah Anne Johnson, "Nadine (from Tree Planting)," 2003

chromogenic print, (Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of the Artist, Photo: Courtesy Julie Saul Gallery, New York, and Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto) and Right: Brian Jungen, "Warrior 4," 2018, Nike Air Jordans, copper, leather, (Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Purchased with funds from the Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund and the Jean MacMillan Southam Art)

The Vancouver Art Gallery says it acquired 334 works for its collection in 2018, mostly as gifts from private donors.

Vancouver-based photography collectors Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft donated 41 works in 2018, boosting their donation total to 752 works. This year's gift includes a large colour photograph, The Asphalt Layer (2001), by Vancouver artist Stephen Waddell. 

Meanwhile, collector Tim Kerr, a former member of the gallery's acquisition committee, donated 24 pieces, his largest gift to date. It includes a portfolio of 15 black-and-white photographs by Fred Herzog and four works by B.C. artist Graham Gilmore.

Acquisitions by contemporary Indigenous artists include Wayne Alfred’s red cedar bark sculpture, Salmon Transformation Mask (1992); Brian Jungen’s Warrior 4 (2018), made from Nike Air Jordans, copper and leather; and Sonny Assu’s acrylic on panel work Ghost (2015). Alfred’s mask is a gift from Beck and Gruft, while Assu’s work is a gift of the artist and Jungen’s work was purchased by the gallery. 

Three works by Tel Aviv-born, Los Angeles-based artist Elad Lassry were added to the collection as gifts: Egg Centerpiece (2012), Two Crystals Green (Red) (2012), and Untitled (Light Blue Cabinet) (2012). Two of these works were included in Lassry’s 2017 survey exhibition.

Winnipeg-born artist Sarah Anne Johnson donated her installation, Tree Planting (2003-4). Comprised of 65 photographs, it chronicles various adventures in tree planting, a rite of passage for many Canadians. 

Ian Wallace, a founder of the West Coast school of post-conceptual photography, donated his 2011 large-scale, four-part work Construction Site (Olympic Village I-IV). Two other works by Wallace were also donated this year: The Summer Script (1974), a work in oil on silver gelatin print, and My Heroes in the Street - Studies for Pictures on Canvas (1986), a group of 10 chromogenic prints. Both were gifts of Beck and Gruft.

Source: Vancouver Art Gallery