If you happen to find yourself in Beantown in the near future I would heartily recommend dropping by the Museum of Fine Arts where from February 13 – June 26, 2016  they will be showing Visiting Masterpieces: Pairing Picasso . The show consists of 11 Picassos hung side by side for the sake of comparison. You could also take in The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris , which runs from March 12 – June 12, 2016 . Before it moves on later in the year to the AGO in Toronto.

Spring 2016

Something wonderful has happened at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It is the beneficiary of a trove of Northwest Coast Art donated by the estate of the late San Francisco collector George Gund III. One of the First Nations art works dates back to 700 AD. The collection is made up of 20 historical works by Haida, Heiltsuk, Inuit, Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nuxalk and Tinglit artists and 17 modern pieces including two more or less recently carved totem poles, drawings by Bill Reid and 13 carved works by Robert Davidson.

When joined to the museum’s existing collection of Davidson’s work the new pieces mean that the Vancouver Art Gallery now has the most significant Davidson collection in a museum. The Gund Collection is on exhibition until January 31, 2016 .

Last but not least VAG is exhibiting what appears to be a blockbuster show on Canadian landscape painting from 1840-1940, Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Kreighoff to the Group of Seven . Once again this is a run don’t walk scenario because the exhibition which features some 130 works finishes on January 24th . All the usual suspects are present when it comes to realistic painting.

Winter 2016

Continuing in an impressionistic manner, the National Gallery is running Monet: A Bridge to Modernity until February 15^th . The exhibition is made up of 12 bridge paintings that Monet made while he was living in the Parisian suburb of Argenteuil. Monet used his fascination with painting bridges as to experiment with a variety of different techniques and colours and the end result largely con- tribute to the creation of Impressionism, a fresh vital look at painting and one of the keystones of modern art.

Winter 2016

From here to ear v.19, running until March 27th at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. It consists of more than 70 Zebra finches, 10 Gibson Les Pauls, 4 Gibson Thunderbirds, 7 cymbals and 4 amps, all sequestered inside a giant aviary. These are top of the line electric guitars and the Thunderbirds are electric bass guitars.

The guitars are mounted on stands so that the front of the guitar is level with the volume and tone controls, strings and playing surface providing a flat surface for the finches to perch on. The finches have a penchant for perching on the strings and every now and then jump up and down on them. The guitars are in blues and power chord open tunings so that when a bird lands on them they produce a chord.

And now for the piece de resistance, in this work of art the viewer becomes the audience for the sounds being produced, the viewer of more than 70 small colourful birds in sometime motion and active participant in creating those sounds. This is the 19^th time that French artist Celeste Boursier-Mougenot’s  from here to ear has been mounted and it is the largest version to date. Anyone who likes John Cage is bound to like this.

WINTER 2016

If you are going to be in Toronto this holiday season, don’t walk, run to the Art Gallery of Ontario and see the J.M.W. Turner: Painting Set Free , before it ends on January 31^st . This is probably the only chance you will have of seeing these painting by one of the great artists of all time and of whom it could be said helped set the stage for Impressionism and modern art. Fifty works from the most experimental and influential stage of Turner’s career are on display.

WINTER 2016

There’s much more to Boston than baked beans and it hosts a bustling museum and art scene. At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Class Distinctions, Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer runs until January 18th .

The show has 75 portraits, genre scenes, landscapes and seascapes borrowed from European and American public and private collections. Roughly put the exhibition is divided into three sections showing the lower, middle and upper class members of the new Dutch Republic and a fourth section showing places where the three classes mixed. Works by artists on display include Rembrandt. Vermeer, Jan Steen, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch and Gabriël Metsu.

Winter 2016

As you would expect the Metropolitain Museum in New York has some marvelous galleries that always repay a visit. I suggest that for the holidays a visit to the tapestries at the Metropolitain are in order. After all, what’s a snowfall without a few tapestries to look at? At the risk of mangling my metaphors or mixing my seasons, Fabergé Easter Eggs also seem to enjoy being seen against the background of winter.

Fabergé from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection  is on display at the Met until November 27, 2016 . As you would suspect with the Met, the most important Fabergé piece in the United States is on display as well, the Lillies-of-the-Valley Basket  as are three Imperial Easter Eggs. Pieces of the collection will rotate on display for the next five years.

If you arrive in New York before January 6, 2016  you will have a chance to see the Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche . The tree itself is a 20 foot blue spruce decorated with 55, 18^th Century Neapolitan angels and 22 cherubs hovering among its boughs and groups of 69 realistic crèche figures flanking the Nativity scene. All of this is set against a Spanish choir screen from the Valladolid Cathedral.

Winter 2016

From October 17, 2015 to January 31, 2016 the Glenbow Museum in Calgary is exhibiting David Thauberger: Road Trips and Other Diversions.

Thauberger is the kind of artist whose work can be described as delightful. While that description may be the kiss of death in some critical circles his work conveys a sense of spontaneity and purity that brings a smile to mind.

His work borders on the naive except that his colours are too true, they punch above their weight and his use of colour is very sophisticated. What he does share with most naive art is a flattened perspective.

Thauberger’s subjects are with the exception of the odd landscape or two are commonplace prairie structures: Legion halls, grain elevators, corner stores and small town bungalows. There is a use of heightened colour that adds a magical characteristic to his work that is quite enchanting and special.

Autumn 2015

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is presenting, The 1920’s Modernism in Montreal The Beaver Hall Group from October 24, 2013 to January 31, 2016.

The Beaver Hall Group is often thought of as a group of women artists but that is due to a mistake made by a travelling exhibition some time ago. Let’s face it, if you were a group of women artists, would you elect A. Y. Jackson as your first president?

Some would say that the Beaver Hall Group is to Montreal as the Group of Seven was to Toronto and there is some truth to that. With Jackson as its first president both groups obviously intermingled and the Group of Seven often incorporated work from the Beaver Hall Group when their work went on travelling exhibitions.

To wrap up the connection, when the Group of Seven decided to call it a day and members went on to form the Canadian Group of Painters, painters from Beaver Hall joined them.

The exhibition is made up of work by group members and friends and includes Emily Coonan, Adrien and Henri Hebert, Prudence Heward, Randolph Hewton, Edwin Holgate, A.Y. Jackson, Robert Pilot, Andre Bieler and others.

Autumn 2015

From October 29, 2015 to March 27 2016 The Quebec National Museum of Fine Art will be presenting, A Private Passion, Modern Art in Quebec from the Pierre Lassonde Collection.

Pierre Lassonde is a successful mining developer and a noted philanthropist. As such he has had the means to collect the very best when it comes to Quebec art. On display will be a hundred key paintings from the history of modern Quebec art. Some of the artists whose work will be displayed include Marc Aurèle Fortin, Clarence Gagnon, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Côté, Helen McNicoll, Paul-Émile Borduas, Marcelle Ferron, Jean-Paul Lemieux and Jean-Paul Riopelle.