Images clockwise from left: Penelope Smart, new director of Eastern Edge Gallery; Gina Tremblay, Jon Rafman, Nicolas Baier and Normand Biron at the awards ceremony for excellence in the visual arts at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; 2015 First Nations’ Art Award recipients with Honourable John Rustad.
Our editors’ weekly roundup of Canadian art news.
The City of Montreal, in partnership with the Contemporary Art Galleries Association (AGAC), awarded Jon Rafman and Nicolas Baier prizes for excellence in the visual arts at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on Thursday. Rafman won the 2015 Prix Pierre-Ayot, an award for emerging artists worth $5,000, and Baier was awarded the Prix Louis-Comtois, dedicated to artists who have distinguished themselves in Montreal over the last 15 years, and awards them a $7,500 prize and an additional $2,500 for organizing a solo exhibition in Montreal.
Six artists were recognized at the 2015 BC First Nations’ Art Awards on Monday. Joe David, a Nuu-chah-nulth artist from Tofino, received a lifetime achievement award for profound contribution to First Nations culture. Linda Bob, Rande Cook, Ya-Ya Heit, Arlene Ness and Laura Wee Lay Laq were also honoured at the event.
Penelope Smart has been hired as the director of Eastern Edge Gallery, an artist-run centre in Newfoundland. Smart holds an MFA in criticism and curatorial practice from OCAD University, and previously worked at MULHERIN and the Art Gallery of Ontario. She replaces Chloe Lewis, who held the position briefly until departing to take part in the Canada Council for the Arts International Residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin
The A.K. Prakash Foundation, founded by Canadian art patron and scholar Ash K. Prakash, donated 50 paintings by Canadian artist James Wilson Morrice to the National Gallery of Canada on Tuesday. The donation, valued at more than $20 million, substantially strengthen the gallery’s holdings, which already held the largest collection of Morrice works.
