Obsession - Sir William Van Horne's Japanese ceramics
The exhibition Obsession: Sir William Van Horne's Japanese Ceramics is organized by the Gardiner Museum, Toronto in partnership with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) and in collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario. This project is funded by the Government of Canada.
The Museum acknowledges the vital contribution of its official suppliers Air Canada and Denalt Paints. It extends its appreciation to the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications and the Conseil des arts de Montréal for their ongoing support.
The MMFA would also like to thank its Volunteer Guides for their abiding dedication, as well as all its members and the many individuals, corporations and foundations - in particular the Fondation de la Chenelière, directed by Michel de la Chenelière, and Arte Musica, presided over by Pierre Bourgie — for their generosity.
We further extend our gratitude to all those who, through their generous assistance, encouragement and support made this exhibition and its scholarly publication possible.
The second half of the nineteenth century was a golden age of collecting in Europe and North America. The Canadian
centre was Montreal, then the country' s economic powerhouse. a period of colonial expansion, its business leaders collected and displayed European and Asian art to convey their emerging power and status.
Sir William Van Horne (1843-1915), the American-born builder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was unique among his peers for having the eye of an artist, the mind of an inventor, and the curiosity of an explorer. While he filled the public rooms of his Sherbrooke Street mansion With an internationally renowned collection of paintings, he reserved his private study for his greater love: Japanese ceramics.
The opening of Japan in 1854 sparked a fashion in the West for collecting Japanese art objects, including elaborately decorated ceramics manufactured for export. A few discerning scholars, dealers, and collectors specialized in amassing the simpler, rougher tea bowls, jars, bottles, and vases made for household use, claiming them to be more culturally "authentic." Van Horne himself assembled over 1,200 examples. This exhibition reunites what survives of Van Horne's collection of domestic wares alongside his exacting watercolours, his elaborately annotated notebooks and letters, and related archival material.
A remarkable case study in the history of collecting, this exhibition highlights the unique beauty of Japanese pottery, and, more importantly, the little-known obsession of one of the greatest collectors in Canadian history.
Obsession - Sir William Van Horne's Japanese ceramics
The exhibition Obsession: Sir William Van Horne's Japanese Ceramics is organized by the Gardiner Museum, Toronto in partnership with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) and in collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario. This project is funded by the Government of Canada.
The Museum acknowledges the vital contribution of its official suppliers Air Canada and Denalt Paints. It extends its appreciation to the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications and the Conseil des arts de Montréal for their ongoing support.
The MMFA would also like to thank its Volunteer Guides for their abiding dedication, as well as all its members and the many individuals, corporations and foundations - in particular the Fondation de la Chenelière, directed by Michel de la Chenelière, and Arte Musica, presided over by Pierre Bourgie — for their generosity.
We further extend our gratitude to all those who, through their generous assistance, encouragement and support made this exhibition and its scholarly publication possible.
The second half of the nineteenth century was a golden age of collecting in Europe and North America. The Canadian
centre was Montreal, then the country' s economic powerhouse. a period of colonial expansion, its business leaders collected and displayed European and Asian art to convey their emerging power and status.
Sir William Van Horne (1843-1915), the American-born builder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was unique among his peers for having the eye of an artist, the mind of an inventor, and the curiosity of an explorer. While he filled the public rooms of his Sherbrooke Street mansion With an internationally renowned collection of paintings, he reserved his private study for his greater love: Japanese ceramics.
The opening of Japan in 1854 sparked a fashion in the West for collecting Japanese art objects, including elaborately decorated ceramics manufactured for export. A few discerning scholars, dealers, and collectors specialized in amassing the simpler, rougher tea bowls, jars, bottles, and vases made for household use, claiming them to be more culturally "authentic." Van Horne himself assembled over 1,200 examples. This exhibition reunites what survives of Van Horne's collection of domestic wares alongside his exacting watercolours, his elaborately annotated notebooks and letters, and related archival material.
A remarkable case study in the history of collecting, this exhibition highlights the unique beauty of Japanese pottery, and, more importantly, the little-known obsession of one of the greatest collectors in Canadian history.