Art Gallery of Windsor celebrates 75th anniversary

By Mohammed Makki

The Art Gallery of Windsor is celebrating its 75th Anniversary.

The gallery is paying tribute to its roots with a display entitled “Dedicated Visions” that highlights the work of Kenneth Saltmarche, the first director and curator.  Saltmarche was a major contributor to the growth of the gallery.

A second display called “Look Again!” showcases Canadian art.

“The works have been drawn from permanent collections, paintings, works on papers, sculptures, installations,” said Curator of Education, Chris Finn. “They are all part of that because these works have been acquired over the years and it’s not only gallery works; new acquisitions will be included in the showcasing.”

Finn adds that the collection includes artists working in the genres of landscape, portraiture, still life, abstraction, and conceptualism.  The result is a wide range of media from paintings to prints, drawings, photographs, sculptures, site-specific installations, and new media technologies.

The Look Again! exhibition also marks the Gallery’s 75th anniversary by intersecting four centuries of historical, modern and contemporary art and presents many of the Gallery’s most important artworks by Emily Carr, the Group of Seven, Beaver Hall Group, and Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporated which include works by Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig and Alex Janvier.

The Art Gallery of Windsor is a non-profit public art gallery established on October 1, 1943.

It started by borrowing art from other galleries, and with additional community support, built its own collection by the second year.