Joyce Zemans

Last updated

Joyce Zemans
Born
Joyce Pearl

(1940-04-21)April 21, 1940
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
EducationBA (French) (1962) and MA in art history (1966) from University of Toronto with additional courses at the University of London Courtauld Institute (1961)
Known forfirst woman to serve as York University`s Dean of Fine Arts and as director of the Canada Council for the Arts (1988-1992)
Spouse
Frederick H. Zemans
​
(m. 1960)​
Awards Order of Canada (2003)

Joyce Zemans CM (born April 21, 1940) is a Canadian art historian, curator, cultural policy specialist and academic. [1] She is known as the first woman to serve as York University`s Dean of Fine Arts and as director of the Canada Council for the Arts (1988-1992).

Contents

Career

Zemans received her BA in French (1962) and her MA in art history (1966) from the University of Toronto, with additional courses at the Courtauld Institute University of London (1961). [1] She was hired as a lecturer in art history (1966–1975) by OCA in Toronto, chaired the Department of art history (1970–1972) and served as founder and the first chair of the Department of Liberal Arts Studies (1973–1975). [1] She was then hired by York University in Toronto as Associate Professor of Art History (1975–1995) and Chair of the Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts (now the School of Arts Media Performance and Design) (1975–1981), and as Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts (1985–1988). [2]

From 1988 to 1992, she was director of the Canada Council, Ottawa. [1] The author of the history of the council has written: “Ask …. about Joyce Zemans' time at the Canada Council and they will say "equity". It was under her leadership that Council began to take racial equality and Indigenous art seriously.....Zemans' tenure at the council is often associated with her efforts to expand...programming to Indigenous and culturally diverse communities". [2]

In 1992, she returned to teaching at York, then as acting director of the graduate program in art history (1994–1995), later developing the diploma in curatorial studies. In 1995, she was honoured with a University Professorship. She was appointed Robarts Chair in Canadian Studies (1995–1996). [1] In 1994, she became co-director of the MBA Program in Arts, Media and Entertainment Management in York's Schulich School of Business and served as co-director and director of that program for over 25 years, retiring in 2020 as Senior Scholar; University Professor Emerita. [1] [3]

Writing

Her publications include catalogues and essays for exhibitions she curated including: J.W.G. Macdonald: The Inner Landscape (Art Gallery of Ontario, 1981) which was praised in a peer review for its "diligent research, immensely readable prose and masterful organization"; [4] Alexandra Luke, Christopher Pratt, Kathleen Munn and Edna Taçon, Bertram Brooker and Tony Urquhart. [1] Other publications include an Art Gallery Handbook and Museums after Modernism, Strategies of Engagement, of which she was the co-editor with Griselda Pollock, as well as books on Sorel Etrog, "Sorel Etrog: Paintings and Drawings: 1963 – 1971", and Jock Macdonald: Life and Work (Art Canada Institute, https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/jock-macdonald). [5] [1]

She has written Chapters in books including one on Frederick Horsman Varley in Frederick H. Varley (1983), and on "The History of Abstract Painting in English Canada", in The Visual Arts in Canada: the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 2007). [5] [1] She has written or co-authored numerous articles on the themes of 'Where Are the Women?' in Canadian art, [6] and on the National Gallery of Canada's program of reproductions of Canadian art in the Journal of Canadian Art History. [1]

Her publications in the field of cultural policy include: Where is Here? Canadian Cultural Policy in a Globalized World (1997), Comparing cultural policy: A study of Japan and the United States co-edited with Archie Kleingartner (Altamira, 1999) and Making Change: Fifty Years of the Laidlaw Foundation co-edited with Nathan Gilbert (ECW Press). [1] She has also written entries for The Canadian Encyclopedia [7] and has served as a member of the editorial advisory boards of scholarly journals in the fields of art history and cultural policy and is a member of the advisory committees of such institutions as the Toronto Arts Council and others. [1] [5]

Honours

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">York University</span> Public university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

York University, also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, and over 375,000 alumni worldwide. It has 11 faculties, including the Lassonde School of Engineering, Schulich School of Business, Osgoode Hall Law School, Glendon College, and 28 research centres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schulich School of Business</span> Canadian business school in Toronto

The Schulich School of Business is the business school of York University located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The institution provides undergraduate and graduate degree and diploma programs in business administration, finance, accounting, business analytics, public administration and international business as well as a number of PhD and executive programs. Originally known as the Faculty of Administrative Studies (FAS), it was renamed in 1995 after Seymour Schulich, a major benefactor who has donated $15 million to the school. The Dean of the School, Detlev Zwick, was appointed in 2021 after having served as Interim Dean for 15 months.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyce Wieland</span> Canadian film director

Joyce Wieland was a Canadian experimental filmmaker and mixed media artist. Wieland found success as a painter when she began her career in Toronto in the 1950s. In 1962, Wieland moved to New York City and expanded her career as an artist by including new materials and mixed media work. During that time, she also rose to prominence as an experimental filmmaker and soon, institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York were showing her films. In 1971, Wieland's True Patriot Love exhibition was the first solo exhibition by a living Canadian female artist at the National Gallery of Canada. In 1982, Wieland received the honour of an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 1987, she was awarded the Toronto Arts Foundation's Visual Arts Award. She was also a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

Lowery Stokes Sims is an American art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art known for her expertise in the work of African, African American, Latinx, Native and Asian American artists such as Wifredo Lam, Fritz Scholder, Romare Bearden, Joyce J. Scott and others. She served on the curatorial staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She has frequently served as a guest curator, lectured internationally and published extensively, and has received many public appointments. Sims was featured in the 2010 documentary film !Women Art Revolution.

James Williamson Galloway Macdonald, commonly known in his professional life as Jock Macdonald, was a member of Painters Eleven, whose goal was to promote abstract art in Canada. Macdonald was a trailblazer in Canadian art from the 1930s to 1960. He was the first painter to exhibit abstract art in Vancouver, and throughout his life he championed Canadian avant-garde artists at home and abroad. His career path reflected the times: despite his commitment to his artistic practice, he earned his living as a teacher, becoming a mentor to several generations of artists.

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is a scholar of Performance and Jewish Studies and a museum professional. Professor Emerita of Performance Studies at New York University, she is best known for her interdisciplinary contributions to Jewish studies and to the theory and history of museums, tourism, and heritage. She is currently the Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition and Advisor to the Director at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

Lorraine Code is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Her principal area of research is feminist epistemology and the politics of knowledge.

Maria W. Tippett is a Canadian historian specialising in Canadian art history. Her 1979 biography of Emily Carr won the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction.

Vera Frenkel is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto. Her installations, videotapes, performances and new media projects address the forces at work in human migration, the learning and unlearning of cultural memory, and the ever-increasing bureaucratization of experience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Lassonde</span> Canadian businessman and philanthropist

Pierre Lassonde is a Canadian businessman and philanthropist.

Edna Jeanette Taçon, whose name is often written, incorrectly, as Edna Tacon, was a Canadian pioneer of modernism.

Angela Grauerholz is a German-born Canadian photographer, graphic designer and educator living in Montreal.

Zainub Verjee CM, is a Kenya-born Canadian video artist, curator, writer, arts administrator and public intellectual. She began her career in the Vancouver arts community of the 1970s, which was steeped in interdisciplinary, intermedia, and intercultural practices. Having made her mark as an emerging artist, she shifted the emphasis of her work to curatorial, administrative and policy arenas. Applying the insight, creativity and criticality of an artist, she has brought “institutional critique” into the workings of the institution itself. Deeply engaged with the UK’s British Black Arts, Tactical Video Movement, Third Cinema and the post-Bandung Conference decolonization, Verjee has been embedded in the history of women’s labour in British Columbia. In February 2020 she was awarded the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for “outstanding contribution to the arts”. In 2021 she was conferred an honorary doctorate by the OCAD University recognizing her outstanding contribution to arts, racial and gender equity She was elected as a Senior Fellow of the Massey College at University of Toronto in the fall of 2021. Earlier she was appointed as McLaughlin College Fellow at the York University. In 2022 she was conferred Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, by Nova Scotia College of Art and Design NSCAD University, Halifax She was the recipient of the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts given by Simon Fraser University, Burnaby in the Spring Convocation of 2023. Her contribution to the pioneering prison theatre program in Canada and for integral role in the formation of the British Columbia Arts Council was recognized by University of Victoria by conferring her with an honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts in Spring Convocation in 2023.

Kathleen "Katie" Patricia Taylor is a Canadian business executive who is the chancellor of York University. She was the chair of the board of the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) from 2014 to 2023, and is the first woman to chair the board of a major Canadian bank. Taylor became chair of the board in January 2014, having served on the board since 2001; she previously chaired the human resources and corporate governance committees, and served on the audit and risk committees.

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.

Barbara Steinman is a Canadian artist known for her work in video and installation art.

Jonathan Charles Edmondson is a British-born historian. He holds Full Professor and Distinguished Research Professorship status at York University and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Sally McKay is a Canadian artist, curator, writer, educator, and personal art coach based in Hamilton, Ontario. McKay is known for her work as an artist of many forms and her research, which explores cognition, consciousness and social structures with a particular interest in the intersections between art and science. McKay has worked in a variety of media including performance, installation and digital art. She is also a widely recognized educator and art coach known for her collaborative work and has worked at a number of Canadian universities. Alongside her work as an artist and researcher, McKay is a writer. McKay has written for, founded and edited several publications and magazines, most notably Lola.

Anique Jordan is a Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, writer, curator and entrepreneur known for her work in photography, sculpture, and performance. Her artwork challenges historical narratives, reinterpreting the past in order to develop a vision of the future. Among her themes are black history in Canada, working-class communities, the relationship between the country's black and Indigenous peoples, and the work black people have put into explaining and fighting against racism.

Anna Victoria Hudson is an art historian, curator, writer and educator specializing in Canadian Art, Curatorial and Indigenous Studies who is the Director of the Graduate Program in Art History & Visual Culture at York University, Toronto.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 "Joyce Zemans". schulich.yorku.ca. Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  2. 1 2 Gattinger, Monica (2017). The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art The First Sixty Years of the Canada Council for the Arts. Kingston: McGill-Queens Press. pp. 85–86. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  3. ↑ "Gala marks retirement of university professor emerita Joyce Zemans.html". educationnewscanada.com. Education News. 4 June 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
  4. ↑ Foss, Brian. "Jock Macdonald: the inner landscape (review)". te.booksc.org. Journal of Canadian Art History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1982), pp. 118-121. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 "Joyce Zemans". vaah.ampd.yorku.ca. York University, Toronto. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  6. ↑ "Where Are the Women? Updating the Account!" (PDF). www.racar-racar.com. RACAR: revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  7. ↑ "Joyce Zemans". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  8. ↑ "Joyce Zemans". www.youtube.com. Concordia University, Montreal, 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  9. ↑ "Honouring Joyce Zemans". www.youtube.com. Canadian Conference of the Arts, 2021. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.