Skip to main content
Apr 6 - Oct 20, '19
Step into the swirl of conversations between historical icons in the form of monumental portraits. Heroes, Ghosts, and Dreams is a stirring collection reflecting the Canadian artist’s knowledge of his subjects.

Paintings of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, and Simone de Beauvoir come together to evoke a physical, tactile presence.

Scherman is a master of the ancient encaustic technique – mixing hot wax with pigment. He confronts both world history and art history, often utilizing stills and close-ups to achieve powerful results. Drawn from the WAG and private collections, this group of paintings spans the last 40 years of the Scherman’s career, highlighting important donations to the Gallery from Ian and Catherine (Kiki) Delaney, and the artist himself.

Bio

Tony Scherman

b. 1950, Toronto, Ontario

Born in Canada, Tony Scherman spent his childhood and young adult life in Paris, Europe, and then London. His father, Paul Scherman, was a professional conductor and violinist in Canada and overseas. In 1974, Scherman received an MA from the Royal College of Art in London, and returned to Toronto in 1976. Over the past 30 years, portraiture has become a primary subject matter for the artist, and he works exclusively in the wax and pigment encaustic technique. He remains one of the leading figurative artists of his generation.

Scherman has had more than 100 solo exhibitions across Canada, the United States, Europe, and China, and has been celebrated in numerous group exhibitions internationally. Among the earliest was The Human Clay, curated by artist R.B. Kitaj in 1976 for the Hayward Gallery in London, England. The Human Clay toured public galleries in the UK and Belgium.

Scherman’s work is represented in 30 public collections across Canada and internationally, including the Art Gallery of Alberta, Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Denver Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Art, Arts Council of Great Britain, Royal College of Art London, Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the Schlossmuseum Murnau, Germany. Scherman has been a visiting lecturer at numerous universities, art schools, and public galleries in England, Canada, and the United States since the mid-1970s.

Presented with the generous support of

The Winnipeg Art Gallery Foundation in honour of the 70th Anniversary of the Associates of the Winnipeg Art Gallery

The accompanying exhibition catalogue is made possible through a generous gift of Malcolm Wells, B.Sc. (Hons) M.Sc. MD FRCP.

Stories

New hours of operation at WAG-Qaumajuq starting April 1
WAG-Qaumajuq recognizes that land acknowledgements are part of an ongoing dialogue with Indigenous Nations, and we are grateful to live and work on these lands and waters. Institutionally, WAG-Qaumajuq is committed to acknowledging our colonial history and we are actively working to interrogate the Gallery’s colonial ways of being.

WAG-Qaumajuq is LEED certified.

WAG - Winnipeg Art Gallery Outline
Winnipeg Art Gallery—Qaumajuq
300 Memorial Blvd
Winnipeg, MB
204.786.6641 // Gallery
204.789.1769 // Shop
Email Us
Tue-Thu // 11am–5pm
Fri // 11am–9pm
Sat-Sun // 11am–5pm
Closed Mondays