McGill Library 2020: Greetings that Pop

SEASON'S GREETINGS THAT POP

The McGill University's Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC) has a fast number of books with cut out images inside them that pop out when you open the page. This season, the McGill Library's RBSC is bringing into focus three festive pop-up scenes from the Sheila R. Bourke Collection that consists of over 2000 items and is rich in the “golden age” of book illustrations from the 19th and to the mid-20th centuries like chapbooks, “toy books” as well as deluxe gift books. Watch the following video.

McGill rare pop up remix video

You can read about the McGill Pop-Up collection here.

The following two videos might also be of interest to you:

McGill rare wintry remix

A Rare Wintry Martlet Remix

 

MMFA 2018: Book of Hours

RESPLENDENT ILLUMINATIONS

BOOK OF HOURS FROM THE 13th TO THE 16th CENTURY IN QUEBEC COLLECTIONS

September 4, 2018 – January 6, 2019

  

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) for the first time presents Books of Hours, conserved in seven Quebec collections. This exhibition is a result of an extensive research. It represents a unique opportunity to admire works primarily from illuminated manuscripts – the priceless legacy of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe.

Books of Hours were works of private devotion that first appeared in the 13th century. They were the most popular prayer books made for the laity and were used as primers for learning to read. Often given as wedding gifts, they were “bestsellers” until the 16th century. Over time, they evolved in a variety of ways both textually and iconographically, adapting to the regional differences in devotions, languages and artistic styles of European Christianity.

The 59 artefacts presented for the first time belong to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, McGill University, the arts library of the Université du Québec à Montréal, the Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice, the Archives of the Jesuits in Canada, to Concordia University and the Musée de l’Amérique francophone in Quebec City.

The works on display show the exquisite elegance of some Gothic and Renaissance illuminations from France, the Southern Netherlands, Italy and Southern Germany, as well as other contemporaneous expressions of popular piety. These small images, featuring decorations similar to decorative folk art carved into wood or painted, were probably produced for clients of more modest means. Seven books come from the early days of printing. The books illustrate the development of woodcuts and metal cuts that gradually replaced the art of illumination.

 Women were more than just pious readers of Books of Hours. As the works in the exhibition demonstrate, thye contributed their expertise at various stages of production.

In comparison with other collections of early books in North America, what is special about the Books of Hours held in Quebec is the fact that they were first and foremost devotional works of New France. This is evidenced in the Jesuit Relations as of 1653 and in requests made by the Hospitalières (nursing sisters in Quebec) between 1664 and 1668 to their benefactors in France. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these devotional books found a new vocation, becoming collectible artefacts. Whether complete or fragmentary, Books of Hours came into Quebec by way of inheritances or purchases in Europe. 

Click on images to enlarge them.

Hover you mouse over images for description  and credits.

This exhibition is located the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Graphic Arts Centre: Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion, Level S2

For more information about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions and activities, visit the museum's website.

MMFA 2016 - Pavilion for Peace Art Catalogue

Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion for Peace
International Art Collection CATALOGUE

FREE PUBLIC VISIT OF THE PAVILION:
November 19, 2016 - January 15, 2017

For the opening of the new pavilion, the Museum has produced a souvenir publication in memory of the Hornsteins, with an essay by Hilliard T. Goldfarb, a conversation with Michal Hornstein. The book features of 80 important or notable works and the catalogue of the Hornsteins' donations.

The publication includes Nathalie Bondil’s essay introducing the new pavilion, as well as the manifesto for a humanist museum, to mark the opening of the Michel de la Chenelière International Atelier for Education and Art Therapy.

The catalogue was published in French and English by MMFA’s Publishing Department, under the general editorship of the Museum's director Nathalie Bondil.

The book has 124 pages and 23 8 illustrations It isavailable at the Museum's
Boutique‐Bookstore.

Click on images to enlarge them.
Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.

For more information about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions, visit the museum's website.

You can read more about the MMFA's new Renata Hornstein Pavilion for Peace in my previous two articles:

MMFA2016 - Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion

MMFA 2016: New Pavilion - International Art Collection

Peter Doig: No Foreign Lands Catalogue

Peter Doig Book 
No Foreign Lands

Along with the Peter Doig art exhibition discussed at here, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is offering to the public the Catalogue of his works. The Catalogue is quite an impressive book comprising of 224 pages. Those pages feature high quality illustrations, photos of his art (both finished paintings and preparatory sketches), as well as text that represents the research on his work. 

This Catalogue can be purchased at the exhibition's book store.

Here are a few pages from the catalogue.

Click on any image to enlarge it.

For more information on Peter Doig exhibition, visit The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts's website.

Peter Doig Exhibition Catalogue can be purchased at the MMFA's boutique and store.

MMFA - 150th Anniversary Guide

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts:

150^th Anniversary Guide

Towards the end of 2013, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has published an expanded annd revised edition of the book that commemorated the museum’s 150^th anniversary in 2010. The museum was founded in 1860 by Francis Fulford, an Anglican Bishop of Montreal, and its first name was the Art Association of Montreal. It was created to encourage the appreciation of fine arts among the people of the city.

At first the Art Association had no permanent location. During the ensuing twenty years it organized shows and expositions which were held in various Montreal venues. Thus it^[was not able to acquire works of art since it had no storage space.

The situation began to change in 1877 when he Art Association received an exceptional gift from Benaiah Gobb, a Montreal businesman. The gift consisted of money to build the Association's Art Gallery on north-east corner of Montreal's Phillips's Square, as well as of works of art from his private collection. This gift by Benaiah Gibb was the founding stone of the present Montreal Museum of Fine Arts's collection.

The second substantial donation by the businessman James Ross took place in 1922 and permitted the Museum to move to its present location.

Since the first gift by Benaiah Gibb in 1877, the MMFA's in-house collection has grown to 40,000 works of art.

The MMFA's 150th Anniversary Guide is a beautifully executed book comprising of 416 pages and 460 high quality illustrations. My photos of the Guide's pages do not render justice to the true scope and beauty of the book. 

The Guide consists of five major sections:

• Archaeology and World Cultures
• European Old Masters
• Modern and Contemporary Art
• Quebec and Canadian Art
• Decorative Arts and Design

Below are several more pages from the book's Quebec and Canadian Art section.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' 150th Anniversay Guide can be purchased at the MMFA's boutique and store.

Visit the MMFA's website for more information on the present and upcoming exhibitions.

Click on any image to enlarge it.

Art and Music in Venice Book - MMFA 2013

Art and Music in Venice
From the Renaissance to the Baroque

This publication accompanies the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' current exhibition Splendore a Venezia: Art and Music from the Renaissance to Baroque in the Serenissima, on display between October 12, 2013 and January 19, 2014. This is a relatively short time for such an important exhibition that provides the historical background to so many artistic and musical tendencies and innovations that took root in Venice and subsequently shaped the Europe's artistic taste and creativity for some time.

The book comprises of 240 pages, many of which are devoted to high quality illustrations and reproductions of paintings.  Together, the illustrations and the text reveal how the music, drawing and painting intertwined, forming one artistic expression. What we now refer to by such terms as renaissance, baroque, or classical, actually represented tor the Venetians' their everyday arts. They were their 'contemporary' music and 'contemporary' visual art expressions, their latest 'hits'. One cannot help but to realize how much more sophisticated and even refined people's artistic tastes were at those times as compared to our's.  

Here are images of several book's pages to give you some idea of what is inside. My photographs of those pages fail to capture the full scope of the content and the beauty of this publication.

Unfortunately, MMFA no longer has an online bookstore. But you can purchase the book in person at the MMFA Boutique and Store.

You can also read more about the exhibition here.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Collection, Volume II

Decorative Arts and Design
  Le Salon du Livre de Montréal

On November 15, 2012, at Le Salon du Livre de Montréal, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has launched its Decorative Arts and Design book. This is the Volume II of their The Montreal Museum of Fine Art's Collection project. The book is of a large format (25 x 35 cm) and comprises 400 pages and 750 colour illustrations.

The book features some 750 works from the Museum's collection of over 15,000 decorative arts and design pieces. Forty experts have written essays and other various entries in the book. The book's graphic design was entrusted to the Orangetango agency. It will be distributed internationally by Les Editions de La Martinière (in French) and Abrams (in English).

The book was self-published by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. MMFA is actually one of Canada's  leading publishers of art books with its own booth at Le Salon du livre de Montréal, where the Volume I of the same MMFA collection entitled Quebec and Canadian Art was also available to visitors for purchase. All together there will be 4 volumes in this MMFA book project. Volume III will have the title Cultures of the World and Fine Arts and will cover the museum's non-Canadian works. Volume IV will be Graphic Arts and Photography, The Michal and Renata Hornstein Collection of Old Masters, though I am not sure whether this would be its final title.

The just-launched Volume II - Decorative Arts and Design book - provides an overview of the MMFA's international collection which was founded almost 100 years ago in 1916 by F. Cleveland Morgan and was augmented in 2000 by a generous donation by Liliane Stuart of over 6,000 works of 20th century design.

Rather than subdivide the book into such categories as furniture, dinnerware and glassware, etc., under the initiative of the museum's director Natalie Bondil the book was subdivided into these 7 distinct sections: wood, paper, glass, ceramics,  metal, fibre, plastic and composite materials.

Below are photographs of some of the book's pages. This will give you an idea of the book's scope and beauty.

The book can be purchased at the MMFA's boutique and store.

To read more about the Salon du Livre de Montréal and to see pictures of this immensely popular and huge Montreal's book fair, visit the article about it my blog Now Event.