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The Dalhousie Art Gallery is pleased to announce the acquisition of 16 important paintings by the Halifax-based artist Gerald Ferguson. The works, which the artist has donated to the
Dalhousie Art GalleryÕs Permanent Collection, have received Cultural Properties designation from the Canadian Cultural Properties Export Review Board as being of Òoutstanding significance and national importance.” The paintings have been carefully selected from FergusonÕs Frottage Series 1994-2005, and, combined with the GalleryÕs existing holdings of 12 works by Ferguson dating from 1969 to the mid-1990s, they represent significant examples of FergusonÕs total body of work to date.

ÒWe are absolutely thrilled with this generous donation,” comments Gallery Director Susan Gibson Garvey, who organized a survey exhibition of FergusonÕs stencil works for Dalhousie Art Gallery in 1995. ÒFerguson is a senior artist with an international reputation, and this selection of recent works is unique in Canada. We will be putting these works on display in a special exhibition in May and June of this year, and we have already received requests from
other galleries across the country to borrow the exhibition.”

Internationally-recognized work

Born in Cincinnati in 1937 and educated at Ohio University, Gerald Ferguson came to Nova Scotia in 1968 to teach at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), and has lived, taught and worked in Nova Scotia ever since. He organized the studio and visiting artist programs that helped make NSCAD the most admired and radical art school in North America in the late 1960s and Õ70s.

It was his lengthy, consistent and distinguished studio practice however that earned him an enduring place in the annals of contemporary art. He has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada, the US and Europe; notable recent exhibitions include solos at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada. His work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York city. Among his awards is the coveted $50,000 Molson Prize for the Arts, received in 1996.

Throughout his distinguished career, Ferguson has examined the conventions and deconstructed the strategies of painting using minimal means and processes. This has led to many remarkable works that maintain a critical posture while at the same time (surprisingly) permitting a subtle beauty to arise. The process of frottage (placing raw canvas over an everyday object, such as an iron grating or coil of rope, and rollering over the surface with enamel paint) has provided Ferguson, late in his career, with an unusual yet simple technique and an exceptionally rich and productive body of work.

A significant donation

The artist comments,Òbecause of my long and satisfying association with the Dalhousie Art Gallery, I spoke to Sue Gibson Garvey about receiving this donation. Together we selected an example from each series. I am pleased that a complete holding of my frottage paintings
has been selected by a curator I respect to become part of the permanent collection of the Dalhousie Art Gallery.”

Dalhousie Art Gallery holds its collection in trust for the education and enjoyment of both the academic and the general communities. Its first priority is to acquire works by artists who have made a significant contribution to the art of this region. By all measures, FergusonÕs contribution is significant, not only regionally, but also nationally and internationally, and the value and representativeness of DalhousieÕs collection is greatly enhanced by
this generous gift.