This Week at Agnes

A note from Alicia Boutilier, Interim Director

On Monday 16 March, AGNES announced that it would temporarily close to protect the health and safety of our visitors and staff. We have some additional information to share about how our museum is responding to COVID-19 as well as how visitors can stay engaged with AGNES during this time.

The museum will remain closed until further notice. Dates for some exhibitions have shifted and onsite programs and events have been canceled or postponed.

We look forward to re-opening the museum and will celebrate together with you. As always, we are grateful to you, our members, donors and visitors for your continued support and interest.

Read the full message.

AGNES From Home

If you need a mental break from the news or just need something to keep you entertained while #FlatteningTheCurve, we have a suite of material for you to explore and engage with #AGNESFromHome.  

We put our heads together and created a list of some of the great things that are available for you to discover, read, watch and enjoy.  Over the weeks to come, we will be sharing rich content from Agnes’s collections, research and educational resources to keep you occupied and to keep you company. 

Read more.

Meet Marissa Monette, Collections Assistant

Marissa Monette joined Agnes as Collections Assistant in October and has been assisting with the care, documentation, administration and handling of Agnes collections, including the special projects involving the Indigenous Art and Canadian Dress collections.

Marissa is a graduate of the Master of Art Conservation Program at Queen’s and brings to the role wide-ranging objects experience in both the private and public sectors, having worked at the Museum of Health Care, in the Department of Art History and Art Conservation, and with the Conservation of Sculptures, Monuments and Objects (CSMO), Kingston. As a graduate student, she held internships at the National Gallery of Canada and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Most recently, Marissa brought her expertise to bear on the dress collection as contract conservator for the exhibition Stepping Out: Clothes for a Gallery Goer.

See for Yourself Artist Talk with Carmen Papalia

Carmen Papalia’s artist talk has been added to Vimeo, YouTube and the Agnes website. Born in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territory, Carmen Papalia talks about how he organizes strategies and improvisation to address access to public space, the art institution, and visual culture. Papalia’s walks, workshops, and interventions model new standards and practices of accessibility.

Watch now.

Ruth Soloway

We were deeply saddened by the news of Ruth Soloway’s passing on Monday, 23 March. She was a kind and remarkable person, and a generous and knowledgeable patron of the arts. She also had an incredible eye. In 2012, Soloway donated her collection of sixty-one paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, alma mater of her late husband, lawyer Hyman Soloway. It was one of the most significant gifts of Canadian art in the gallery’s history. An outstanding private collection transformed into a public legacy, the Soloway gift continues to have lasting impact on research, exhibitions and publications. One of Ruth Soloway’s favourites was Jean Paul Lemieux’s Le beau monde (1969), which held pride of place in her former Rockcliffe Park home in Ottawa.