This year-long exhibition explores drawing in Canadian art from its earliest uses to its role in contemporary culture. Over time the drawings on display will change, providing a wide array of selections from the collection. The Drawing Room will also progress chronologically, from historical content to contemporary works.
The first selection will surveys drawings made during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a time when instructors emphasized drawing as the backbone of all artmaking. Only after years of formidable training drawing casts of classical sculpture, models and still life arrangements could a student branch out into other fields. Most, however, saw finished drawings as inferior to other forms. Instead, it was seen as a preliminary exercise, a step to something else, and to becoming a professional, a master.
Many of the works shown are therefore sketches, by Horatio Walker, James Wilson Morrice, F.S. Coburn and London’s own Albert Templar. They track an artist’s development and record ideas from the imagination to a finished work (usually a painting). The exhibition also includes portraits and landscapes by Marc-Aurele de Foy Suzor-Cote, Kate Taylor Cumming and Emily Carr.
The Drawing Room