Annual Report 2008-2009 - National Gallery of Canada

Gifts to the Library included a fine three-volume publication
with colour plates titled L’art arabe d’après les monuments
du Kaire, by Prisse d’Avennes (Paris: Morel, 1877), as well
as a collection of Pasdeloup Press publications. Three purchases
of contemporary artists’ books and multiples were enabled by
the Reesa Greenberg National Gallery Library Endowment Fund.
Books were acquired from the collections of former Director
Jean Sutherland Boggs, by gift, and the late Canadian art
historian Robert Stacey, by purchase. Also added to the Library
were fourteen rare mid 19th-century pamphlets and trade
catalogues on photography, as well as publications relating to
the Montreal Winter Carnival of 1884 and the Ottawa Winter
Carnival of 1895.
The Archives received gifts of collections of woodblocks by
Carl Schaefer; of drawings and notes by Joyce Wieland; and of
designs for Birks silver. Two photographs of Emily Carr as a young
woman were purchased. Other acquisitions included archival
materials relating to two galleries, W. Scott & Sons of Montreal,
by gift, and Kensington Gallery of Calgary, by purchase.
Preservation
Priority: Maintain and protect the national collection and
works of art loaned to the Gallery.
All works of art loaned to other institutions or placed in exhibitions
as part of NGC programming were examined and treated
as required. Any works under consideration for acquisition
were also thoroughly examined to ensure their viability in
terms of condition and long-term stability. Finally, additional
works in the collection were examined and treated as part of
a program to upgrade the permanent collection and in support
of research and publication.
The Gallery had systems in place to ensure complete
physical control of all works of art at all times.
As of 31 March 2009:
• Conservators have undertaken 1710 conservation processes
related to the exhibitions program and 1004 in connection
with the loans program. Of these works, 1266 were treated,
561 from the permanent collection.
• Approximately 1046 objects were given minor to moderate
treatment not related to any loan or exhibition. Four
ongoing treatments during this period would be considered
major.
Conservators Stephen Gritt and Tomas Markevicius commenced
the largest single painting restoration project undertaken by
the Gallery: the two-year restoration of the painting of The
Dead Christ Supported by Angels, a fragment of an altarpiece
painted by Paolo Veronese around 1563. Part of a special exhibition
that will reunite this portion with other pieces of the
Petrobelli Altarpiece, owned by the National Gallery of Scotland,
the Dulwich Picture Gallery, UK and the Blanton Museum of Art,
Austin, Texas, the work will be on view at the Gallery in May
2009. A catalogue in both French and English editions will
accompany the exhibition. The restoration of the Gallery’s
fragment, the presentation of the reunified altarpiece in
Ottawa and the documentation of the research conducted by
the National Gallery related to the project were made possible
thanks to the generous support of the Members, Supporting
Friends, and Donors of the NGC and the NGC Foundation.
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