New Acquisition Highlights
Tarralik Duffy. Supuujuq (Coleman Stove), 2023. digital print, 76.2 x 101.6 cm. print. Collection of WAG-Qaumajuq, 2024-4.
Thanks to the generosity of supporters like you, 33 historical, 120 modern, and 36 contemporary pieces add to the public collection of nearly 30,000 artworks. Several are already slated to go on view in the next few years.
A large portion of the new acquisitions were donated from the Salgo Trust for Education, totalling 82 paintings and works on paper by a number of Hungarian artists, including internationally renowned 19th-century painter Mihály Munkácsy, known for large-scale historical and religious paintings; Károly Kernstok, an important member of The Eight (A Nyolcak), bringing Fauvism and Expressionism to Hungary; and László Mednyánszky, known for moody, atmospheric landscapes, among many others. Also accepted was a donation of two fine Surrealist works by József Jakovits, a founding member of the avant-garde art movement European School (Európai Iskola) in Hungary, from the Alma on Dobbin Foundation, New York, brokered by The Salgo Trust for Education.
These artworks are transformative for the European collections at the Gallery, and we are grateful to The Salgo Trust for Education for entrusting us with them. In addition to this significant donation, the Salgo Trust for Education is also supporting an endowment for research, conservation, and an exhibition and catalogue to be produced in the coming years. We’re excited for you to experience these remarkable artworks as part of your WAG-Qaumajuq experience.
Other highlights you may remember from recent exhibitions, such as Tarralik Duff’s leather Jerry Can series (2023), and her Supuujuq (Coleman Stove) and Big Red Honda (2023) digital prints that were featured in her Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award solo show, Gasoline Rainbows. The incredible Kenojuak Ashevak lithograph, Silavut, Nunavut (Our Environment, Our Land) that was included in Inuit Sanaugangit was donated by a generous donor who felt strongly that Qaumajuq as a centre dedicated to the celebration of Inuit art should have in its collection an editioned print of the seminal image created in 1999 to commemorate the establishment of Nunavut.
Grace Nickel’s Arbor Vitae (2015) that was on view summer of 2023 in Inter Artes et Naturam, and Miriam Rudolph’s Storied Land: (Re)Mapping Winnipeg commissioned for the Headlines: The Art of the News Cycle exhibition in 2023 add to the collection by Manitoba artists. Several works by Rosalie Favell that were in her solo show Family Legacy in 2021, and caneu’s Deadly (2023), a bead, beaver fur, and smoked hide sculpture currently on display in Threads of Kin and Belonging bring Metis voices. The Gallery also acquired two works by Tim Gardner, whose artistic journey got its start in Manitoba: Nighttime Tobogganer and Matt in Leaves from his retrospective in the fall of 2023.
Together, these works represent a snapshot of the community in Manitoba, as well as the Gallery’s commitment to Inuit art. We thank the donors and supporters who made these acquisitions and the many others possible for the public collection, the Works of Art Committee chaired by City Councillor Brian Mayes, and the WAG-Qaumajuq staff involved in the acquisition process. We can’t wait to share all of these incredible artworks with you and future generations.
Stay tuned for our new exhibitions featuring the permanent collection: Crying Over Spilt Tea, curated by Grace Braniff, Assistant Curator of Art; a matter of time, curated by Nawang Tsomo Kinkar, TD Curatorial Fellow; and Go Forward, Look Back, co-curated by Stephen Borys, Director & CEO, and Marie-Anne Redhead, Assistant Curator of Indigenous and Contemporary Art.
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