Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts

1380 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal | Tel: (514) 285-2000

Description of Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts

Thus began the history of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which came into being in 1860 as the Art Association of Montreal. In this city, where large numbers of art-lovers and art-collectors were to be found, and where a variety of artistic traditions flourished—some of them dating back to the time of French rule—there was no school of art and no museum, nor even any venue at which exhibitions could be mounted. And yet Montreal was the most important city in British North America at the time: it was the cradle of the Canadian industrial revolution, the hub of waterway, maritime, and railway transport, and the seat of the country’s great financial institutions. It was therefore not surprising that a group of wealthy public-spirited Montreal citizens should think of setting up an ‘association’ devoted to the spread of the fine arts, in line with a philanthropic tradition that was very widespread in North America. Unfortunately, the collectors’ resources fell short of their aspirations, and until 1879 the activities of the Art Association were confined to a handful of exhibitions and the occasional drawing-class.

The real breakthrough was due to a Montreal merchant by the name of Benaiah Gibb. In 1877, Gibb bequeathed the Art Association a plot of land, a sum of money to be used to build a museum, and a modest collection of European paintings and sculptures which formed the nub of the institution’s permanent collection. Located in the business quarter, the Art Gallery inaugurated in 1879 was the first building in Canada to be specifically designed to house a collection of works of art. It consisted of a large exhibition-hall with overhead lighting, a small room set aside for watercolours, and a reading-room. Every year, the Art Association organized two major events in the gallery: an exhibition of works lent by its members—several of whom owned extensive collections of European art; and a Spring Exhibition, which was devoted to living Canadian artists. From the 1880s, the Art Association regularly purchased works exhibited at the Spring Exhibition, and also works produced by the best students at its school of art, thus building up a basic collection of Canadian art.

In 1892, John W. Tempest bequeathed to the Art Association some sixty canvases and watercolours, together with a sum of money to be ‘expended in the purchase of foreign pictures only, exclusive of American or modern British pictures which I consider to be too costly in proportion to their merit’. As early as 1894, the Art Association was able to put the Tempest Fund to use for the purchase of the very fine Interior with a Woman Playing a Virginal by Emanuel de Witte, which is still one of the collection’s major works. The sum bequeathed by Tempest continued to be the main source of funds for the purchase of European art until the mid-1950s.

Visit website to read more ...

Source: mbam.qc.ca

Map Location:

Email: