Permanent Collection: Works from the 1970s

The Contemporary Art Gallery is the custodian of a civic collection of 3000 artworks by Vancouver artists. This collection was acquired between 1973 and 1978 by the Social Planning Department of the City of Vancouver, with the assistance of the Federal Government’s Manpower and Immigration Department. With funding from the “Local Initiatives Program” artists were hired to make artwork that would be exhibited in the Gallery and later circulated throughout the many civic buildings in Vancouver. After 1978, a few additional works were donated to the Contemporary Art Gallery, so the core of the collection remains a reflection of the art activity in Vancouver during the 1970s.

The upcoming exhibition will be the first time the collection has been exhibited in the Contemporary Art Gallery since 1985. The focus is on works by five women artists active in Vancouver during the 1970s: Marian Penner Bancroft (photography), Cathy Charlton (drawing), Judith Lodge (painting), Liz Magor (sculpture), and Chick Rice (photography). The 1970s was an important period for women artists generally, as they began to break away from male-dominated discourses. The work in this exhibition is varied, but there is an underlying sense of the “domestic" in its broadest terms. Works in this exhibition document the intimacy of familial and social events, and personalize portraits of friends.

Permanent collection: Works from the 1970s marks the beginning of a re-evaluation of the Contemporary Art Gallery collection and an opportunity to explore an important era in the recent history of Vancouver's art activity.