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March 26 to May 16, 2010
 When Kainai elders Andy Black
Water and Frank Weasel Head
visited the Pitt Rivers Museum
at Oxford University in 2002,
they were shown a collection
of Blackfoot material that had
been collected more than
a century and a half before.
Among the collection were
five hide shirts decorated
with porcupine quills, paint
and human hair. It is believed
that these Blackfoot shirts
were acquired in the 1840s by
employees of the Hudson's Bay
Company during their travels
and encounters with the First
Nations people.
These shirts embody ancient stories and
histories of the Blackfoot people, and are
considered important curriculum as they
teach the Blackfoot people about their place
and roles within the world. They are critical
tools in creating a bridge to link past events
and stories with contemporary lives to create
community memory for the Blackfoot people.
Glenbow Museum and
the Pitt Rivers Museum are
pleased to present these five
historically significant shirts
to the Blackfoot people
and to Albertans. Prior to
the public exhibition, the
shirts will be the focus
of workshops in which
the people from the
Siksika, Kainai and Piikani
communities will gather to
examine the shirts, research
how to preserve the shirts
physically and spiritually, and
discuss how the Blackfoot
people can further access
the shirts once they return to Oxford, England.
Join us to explore Blackfoot artistic traditions
and learn about the importance of these shirts
to the oral tradition of First Nations people.
This exhibition is a collaboration between the Pitt
Rivers Museum in Oxford, England; the Galt Museum
in Lethbridge and Glenbow Museum.
Production Support from: The Rozsa Foundation and the Alberta Museums Association.
Blackfoot Shirt with Porcupine Quill Decoration and Painted Images of War Deeds, no date, Collection of Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
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The Painter as Printmaker will feature some
60 works drawn from the National Gallery
of Canada's fine collection of Realist and
Impressionist prints including works on paper
by such famous nineteenth century artists as Corot,
Millet, Manet, Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, Cassatt,
Cézanne and Van Gogh. Emphasizing the
extraordinary beauty of the Impressionist
print, these works also demonstrate how
Impressionist artists were as revolutionary in
their printmaking as they were in their painting.
Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002) is Canada's
most famous artist of international renown and
his works can be found in major collections
around the world. The Glory of Abstraction presents the work of this amazing modernist
artist who produced some of the most beautiful
abstract paintings of the twentieth century. The
exhibition will include a number of dazzling
canvases borrowed from public and private
collections, many of which will be seen in
Calgary for the first time.
Canadian artist Stephen Hutchings' evocative
landscapes examine ideas of temporality,
permanence and eternity. The large-scale
paintings invite the viewer into a "natural" world – one that is void of culture and technology.
Yet Hutchings, in a true form of allegory,
actually creates these works from digital
images on canvas which he then applies onto
charcoal and oils to present landscapes of our
time — landscapes of a threatened earth. But
with the presence of light, it is suggested that
at the end of time, at the edge of the world,
there is a glimmer of the boundless majesty
and mystery of the world.
