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The Blackwood Gallery permanent collection consists of over 450 works of Canadian contemporary art. The main areas of collecting focus have been prints by Ontario-based artists and prints and small sculpture by Inuit artists. The collection also includes a number of 19th-century paintings and etchings by Charlotte Schreiber, who lived on the property that is now the UTM campus and was the first female academician of the Royal Canadian College of Art. Artists represented in our collection include Carl Beam, Rebecca Belmore, David Blackwood, Tom Dean, Vera Frenkel, Leon Golub, Kenojuak, Kudjuakju, J.E.H. MacDonald, Charles Pachter, Pitseoluk, Christopher Pratt, Mary Pratt, Quinnuayuak, and Michael Snow.
Over 200 works from the collection are installed around the UTM campus in both offices and public spaces. The entire collection has been digitized and can be accessed on FADIS, the Federated Academic Digital Imaging System, for those who have access through their university library. Another way to access works from the collection is by downloading our free iPad app Art Walk which provides images and information about works installed in public areas on campus so that they can be toured in real life or virtually from wherever you are.
In 2013-14 the Blackwood Gallery completed a project to upgrade its permanent collection storage and preservation facilities. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage Museum Assistance Program/Nous reconnaissons l’appui financier du gouvernement du Canada par l’entremise Programme d'aide aux musées du ministère du Patrimoine canadien.
UTM staff and faculty can arrange for works from the collection to be hung in offices or hallways in their department. Please contact michael.dirisio@utoronto.ca to set-up an appointment.
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In 2013-2014 the Blackwood Gallery acquired ten works of art. Our current collecting program extends our history of collecting printed editions by expanding into the territories of digital editions, sculptural editions, and mail art. It also draws on the Gallery’s longstanding curatorial interest in conceptual art and performance art. A number of the works recently collected will exist in our collection only as digital files to be produced anew each time they are to be exhibited. One such work is Josh Thorpe’s Blackbirds, which is stored as an Adobe Illustrator file and produced as vinyl lettering to be installed on a window. Similarly, Alison S. M. Kobayashi’s photograph Seven Inch Fall is stored as an image file and will be periodically printed on a billboard-sized sheet of Duratrans to be displayed in the Bernie Miller Lightbox on Davis Building.
The 2013-2014 acquisitions are:
Alison S. M. Kobayashi, Seven Inch Fall, 2009, digital file of photograph.*
Alison S. M. Kobayashi, Ping Pong at Freehand Miami, Florida, 2014, watercolour on postcard.
Alison S. M. Kobayashi, Pal Superette 7 to 11 Sign in Savannah, Georgia, 2014, watercolour on postcard.
Alison S. M. Kobayashi, Matchstick Fire in Happy Valley, Tennessee, 2014, watercolour on postcard.
Alison S. M. Kobayashi, Softserve Architecture in Kissimmee, Florida, 2014, watercolour on postcard.
Ryan Park, some contact points (for bodies near the surface of the earth), 2009, digital audio file
Ryan Park, Untitled (4’33”), 2006, book with graphite.*
Roula Partheniou, Caution Yellow, 2014, fimo and acrylic paint.*
Jon Sasaki, A Minimalist Cube Shipped with Minimal Effort and Expense, 2012, powder coated steel cube with shipping stickers.*
Jon Sasaki, Nothing Exists Except Atoms and Empty Space, 2014, plywood with shipping stickers.
Joshua Thorpe, Blackbirds, 2014, digital file of text.*
Joshua Thorpe, Tree and Eagle, Blackie Spit (off-white and pale orange), 2015, serigraph, ink on paper.
*Purchased with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Grants program/ Ouvre achetée avec l'aide du programme de Subventions d'acquisition du Conseil des arts du Canada.
Art Walk is a free iPad app available from iTunes that takes you on a tour of the permanent art collection installed throughout the University of Toronto Mississauga campus. Whether you are on campus or at home, you will be able to see the artworks installed in and around our buildings and find out more about these works and the artists who created them.
On the walk you’ll discover:
- an interactive map showing the location of artworks on campus
- high-resolution images and contextualizing information for each artwork
- biographical information on the artists
- newly commissioned essays on a selection of artworks by Canadian artists, writers, and art historians
Art Walk was designed and developed by DigitalDip, an interactive design and user-experience studio specializing in multi-platform product and content creation.
This project has been funded by the Government of Ontario.
Since 2012, a number of essays have been commissioned on works in the collection. These are available to read at the following links as well as through the Art Walk app:
2000 and Fragile Skies by Carl Beam, written by Sky Goodden
Charlotte Schreiber (1834-1922), written by Carol-Ann Ryan
Egg Woman by Charles Pachter, written by Sara J. Angel
Embrace and Vantage Point by Vera Frenkel, written by Jean-Paul Kelly
Five Sisters by Rebecca Belmore, written by Wanda Nanibush
Vale Variation #166 by Harold Town, written by Sarah Stanners
Walking Woman/Carla Bley by Michael Snow, written by Charlene K. Lau.
These essays were commissioned with funding from the Government of Ontario.
