Throughout Western art history women have been among the most common subjects for artists (if not always encouraged to be artists themselves), as allegories, as religious icons, as portraits. That history is made visible in the permanent collection of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery which is rich in portraiture dating back hundreds of years; it was a major feature of Lord Beaverbrook’s legacy gift and has remained a central aspect of the gallery’s collecting practice. Icons: Portraits of Women celebrates an important new addition to the gallery’s permanent collection, a portrait of Indigenous actor, writer, and film producer Gail Maurice.
Gail Maurice (2020) is part of Kent Monkman's "Heroes" series, a collection of paintings that celebrate Indigenous figures as heroes in a way that challenges Western art history's traditional portrayal of heroism. The series uses a grand history painting style to elevate Indigenous individuals and their stories into the canon of cultural memory. In this work, Maurice is depicted spotlit on a grand stage, in fact one of the grandest stages: the Fenice Opera House in Venice. She is brandishing a drum and drumstick in a manner that mimics a warrior hero from academic panting. Monkman says that the series was inspired by the late Senator Murray Sinclair who encouraged Indigenous peoples to concentrate on celebrating their own heroes, rather than focusing on those celebrated by settlers.
Icons: Portraits of Women also includes a selection of portraits from our Canadian collection, including works from Lord Beaverbrook’s original gift by JW Morrice, Henrietta Mabel May, Fred Varley, Fred Ross, and Stanley Cosgrove. Later additions to the collection by Jack Humphrey, Ghitta Caiserman-Roth, Theodore Goodridge Roberts, and Mary Pratt are joined by a loan to the exhibition of a portrait by Lilias Torrence Newton, perhaps Canada’s most acclaimed portrait artist of the mid-20th century. Icons: Portraits of Women also includes three new promised gifts of portraits by Stephen May, Glenn Priestley, and Wally Dion.
While none of these women are depicted as traditional, iconic heroes, Gail Maurice and her supporting cast suggest a new way of thinking about what makes an icon.
Ray Cronin
Director of Exhibitions, Collections and Curatorial Initiatives
