Travel through Canadian history one painting at a time

The McMichael Art Gallery is now exhibiting one of the country’s prestigious private Canadian art collections. The show offers everything from mid 19th century all the way through to the present moment. It’s called Generations: The Sobey Family and Canadian Art.

The gallery’s chief curator, Sarah Milroy says viewing the exhibit is not only an art lesson but also a history lesson. “You can really see ways in which art can tell you the historical time periods that it was made in. You can see how resource extraction for example was making an imprint on the landscape. You can see dialogue between indigenous and settler cultures in the historic period but, also the contemporary period.”

McMichael Canadian Art Collection was the first to put it together. Milroy says, “the first day that we were able to travel to Nova Scotia we had a chance to tour through all of the collections. It’s been called ‘Generations’ in part because of all the good things that have been generated by the Sobeys in so many ways.”

The collection features pieces by Joseph Tisiga, an indigenous artist from northern B.C., John O’Brien, and many more. Normally these works of art can’t be viewed easily.

There are some works here that are available to see by appointment or one day a week at the Crombie house in Stellarton, Nova Scotia if you are ever out that way. But, the vast majority of works in this show you can not see.

The Generations show will be available until May 23rd and then it will start travelling across Canada.