In Terry Zwigoff’s 2006 cult-classic film Art School Confidential, artistic competition for fame and financial success is lampooned, with the art school experience likened to a literally life or death issue. That’s entertainment, of course, and education is almost always much more prosaic. Art schools are where prospective artists go to learn skills, absorb art history, and make friendships amongst their peers that often endure for decades. Not every art student finds success, or even becomes an artist, but all of them should take something unique away from their experience. Whether at a stand-alone art college, or as a department in a larger university, every art school has something different to offer the aspiring artist, whether that be facilities, the surrounding city, the specific gifts of the faculty or the relative scale of the experience: intimate and thoughtful perhaps, or large and bustling.
Our survey exhibition Leaders in the Field: The History and Legacy of Art at Mount Allison takes an in-depth look at one of the country’s leading art schools, with roots that date back to 1854. Art School Confidential features work by artists who chose other educational paths. Faculty members and graduates of NSCAD, the NBCCD, and the Université de Moncton are featured along with artists who chose to study outside of the region in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Drawn from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery’s extensive permanent collection of contemporary Atlantic Canadian art, Art School Confidential features work by Ned Bear, Jaret Belliveau, Judy Blake, Rick Burns, Brigitte Clavette, Gerard Collins, Gerald Ferguson, Alexandra Flood, Yvon Gallant, Helen Gregory, Jay Isaac, Herzl Kashetsky, Katherine Knight, Ghislaine McLaughlin, Nancy Morin, and Graeme Patterson.
A project of the Marion McCain Institute for Atlantic Canadian Art.
