Alicia Boutilier | |
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Born | Alicia Anna Boutilier 1968 (age 55–56) Welland, Ontario |
Education | Honours BA in English, University of Ottawa (1990); MA in English, Dalhousie University, Halifax (1992); Qualifying Year in Art History, Carleton University, Ottawa, 1995/1996; MA in Canadian Art History, Carleton University, Ottawa, 1998 |
Occupation | Art curator |
Known for | Curator of Canadian art with wide-ranging interests, administrator, educator |
Alicia Boutilier (born 1968) is the Chief Curator and Curator of Canadian Historical Art at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston. She has been Curator of Canadian Historical Art since 2008 and was appointed Chief Curator in 2017. [1] In 2020, she served as the Interim Director at the gallery and received a special recognition award from Queen's University at Kingston for her work as a team leader, adapting to the new realities caused by Covid. [2] She is a Canadian art historian with wide-ranging concerns with emphasis on women artists, artistic groups, regional scenes and collecting histories. [3] [4]
Boutilier was born in Welland and grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario. She received her Honours BA in English, University of Ottawa (1990); her MA in English, Dalhousie University, Halifax (1992); then did a qualifying year in Art History at Carleton University, Ottawa (1995/1996) and received her MA in Canadian Art History from Carleton University, Ottawa (1998). [1] Boutilier began her career as an exhibition assistant at the show of Helen Galloway McNicoll: A Canadian Impressionist at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1999, then worked in various jobs at the Art Gallery of Northumberland (1999-2000), the Art Gallery of Hamilton (2001-2006), as an Independent Curator (2005-2008) and as a research assistant at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2006-2008). She was appointed Curator of Canadian Historical Art at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in 2008, and in 2017, Chief Curator. In 2020, she served as the gallery`s Interim Director. [1]
In her 1998 inaugural show 4 Women Who Painted in the 1930s and 1940s - Rody Kenny Courtice, Bobs Cogill Haworth, Yvonne McKague Housser, and Isabel McLaughlin, she discussed as part of her narrative their striving to promote a wider Canadian consciousness of art. In her exhibitions and publications, she has continued to be interested in such a "wider consciousness" herself, choosing to discuss, for instance, the intersections of art and craft as in quilts (2011) and assisting with the history of the Art Gallery of Hamilton's historical Canadian collection in Lasting Impressions: celebrated works from the Art Gallery of Hamilton (2005).
She focused as well on Canadian historical art in the exhibition and publication of collections such as that of H. B. Southam (2009), Inuit art (2011) and Northern Indigenous Art (2013), as well as on Canadian artists such as Jack Bush (2009) and William Brymner (2010) (co-curated and co-authored with Paul Maréchal of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec). Her A Vital Force: The Canadian Group of Painters (CGP) (2013), which she curated, was the first major touring exhibition to focus exclusively on the CGP in an exhibition of major paintings from public and private collections across Canada, for which she received an oaag Curatorial Writing Award for Major Essay. [1] [5] In 2015, she co-curated The Artist Herself: Self-Portraits by Canadian Historical Women Artists (2015) with Tobi Bruce of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, concentrating on what art and craft offered the genre's definition of self-representation. [6] Her 2021 exhibition Tom Thomson: The Art of Authentication, co-curated and authored again with Bruce, established criteria to authenticate a work of art, taking as its focus the work of Tom Thomson. [7]
Boutilier has written entries to the catalogues of such exhibitions as Uninvited, Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Movement, McMichael Canadian Art Collection (2021) as well as writing numerous essays in publications and journals such as "Road Trip Across Canada with Alan C. Collier" which was related to her show of the same name (2017). [8] [1] Since 2009, she has supervised M.A. and Ph.D. theses in the area of Canadian art at Queen's University, Kingston and since 2019, she has served as an adjunct professor in its department of Art History and Conservation. [1] She also has served on many committees, notably for the city of Kingston, and was a Founding member of the Curators of Canadian Historical Art (COCHA), in 2009 and has remained on it till the present. [1]
Laura Muntz Lyall was a Canadian Impressionist painter, known for her sympathetic portrayal of women and children.
The Canadian Group of Painters (CGP) was a collective of 28 painters from across Canada who came together as a group in 1933. Its Archives is in Queen's University, Kingston.
William Brymner, was a Canadian figure and landscape painter and educator. In addition to playing a key role in the development of Impressionism in Canada, Brymner taught numerous artists who became leading figures in Canadian modern art.
The Galeries Ontario / Ontario Galleries (GOG), formerly Ontario Association of Art Galleries / Association Ontarienne des Galeries d’Art (OAAG/AOGA), was established in 1968 to encourage development of public art galleries, art museums, community galleries and related visual arts organizations in Ontario, Canada. It was incorporated in Ontario in 1970, and registered as a charitable organization. It is a successor organization to the Southern Ontario Gallery Group founded in 1947, renamed the Art Institute of Ontario in 1952. In December 2020 Ontario Association of Art Galleries / Association Ontarienne des Galeries d’Art (OAAG/AOGA) rebranded to the name Galeries Ontario / Ontario Galleries (GOG) which included new brand identity, logo, and website to better serve art organizations in Ontario and Canada.
The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is located in Kingston, Ontario, on the campus of Queen's University. The gallery has received a number of awards for its exhibitions from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Association of Art Galleries and others.
Isabel McLaughlin, was a Modernist Canadian painter, patron and philanthropist. She specialized in landscapes and still life and had a strong interest in design.
Yvonne McKague Housser, (1897–1996) was a Modernist Canadian painter, and a teacher.
Barbara Anne Astman is a Canadian artist who has recruited instant camera technology, colour xerography, and digital scanners to explore her inner thoughts.
Bobs Cogill Haworth (1900–1988) was a South African-born Canadian painter and potter. She practiced mainly in Toronto, living and working with her husband, painter and teacher Peter Haworth. She was a member of the Canadian Group of Painters with Yvonne McKague Housser, Isabel McLaughlin and members of the Group of Seven.
Lois Etherington Betteridge was a Canadian silversmith, goldsmith, designer and educator, and a major figure in the Canadian studio craft movement. Betteridge entered Canadian silversmithing in the 1950s, at a time when the field was dominated by male artists and designers, many of them emigrés from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. In fact, Betteridge was the first Canadian silversmith to attain international stature in the post-war studio craft movement.
Rody Kenny Courtice was a modernist Canadian painter. She was associated with the Group of Seven early in her career, but later developed a more individual style. She was active in associations of artists and worked for the professionalization of their occupation. She also was an educator.
Joanne Tod (R.C.A.) is a Canadian contemporary artist and lecturer whose paintings are included in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto and the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.
Mary Alexandra Bell Eastlake was a Canadian painter most notable for her portraits of women and children, as well as a jewelry and enamelwork designer and producer.
Leslie Reid is a Canadian painter and printmaker from Ottawa, Ontario, known for adding a visual and sensory experience of light to the landscape tradition of painting in Canada. She is also an educator.
Jan Allen is a Canadian curator, writer, visual artist, and assistant professor in the Department of Art History and Art Conservation, and the Cultural Studies Program, at Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario.
Pamela Edmonds is a Canadian visual and media arts curator focused on themes of decolonization and the politics of representation. She is considered an influential figure in the Black Canadian arts scene. Since 2022, Edmonds has been the Director and Curator of the Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Elisabeth Margaret Hopkins, born in Fort Gilkicker, Hampshire, England, was a painter and writer in British Columbia.
Tobi Bruce has been the Director of Exhibitions and Collections and Senior Curator at the Art Gallery of Hamilton since 2015. She is a Canadian art historian who places curatorial collaboration at the centre of her practice.
Linda Jansma was the Interim Director of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa (2019-2020) and Senior Curator (1994-2012). She is a Canadian art historian who places collaborative partnerships with institutions across Canada at the centre of her practice.
Barbara Fischer is an art curator and writer who specializes in contemporary art in all media with an emphasis on sculpture, installation, and projection/lens-based work. The Toronto Star called her the "unassuming nuclear reactor of the Toronto arts scene", adding that she is "doing seemingly impossible work that, at the same time, is both vital and otherwise neglected: building a memory bank of artistic expression in a city plagued with willful amnesia."