The University of Lethbridge is Sharing Stories and Bridging Cultures with a new exhibit based on the works of Russian born Canadian artist Nicholas de Grandmaison at the Helen Christou Gallery, located next to the Library.
The exhibit features several works of Blackfoot nation people including, men, women, children and elders which is supplemented by stories conducted by the artist, who passed away in 1978 as well as curator, Museum Studies intern Maria Livingston.
Coincidentally, she found a personal connection with a couple of the subjects.
“ I know his grandson,” she observed, indicating a portrait of Mortimer Eaglefeathers.
“When I asked him ( the grandson) if he knew who this was, his face lit up,” she enthused adding it turned out another portrait is of Livingston’s sister’s husband’s father.
“ But I didn’t know it until later. So it has been really great,” she continued.
The works come from the University of Lethbridge art collection, which also included the original recording equipment which used blue wax discs De Grandmaison used to record his interviews, mostly in the 1950s— excerpts of which can be heard at a listening station next to this display along with Livingston’s own interviews with relatives of the subjects. The machine and a couple of the discs are also part of the exhibit.
“ Each disc only holds eight minutes. I was conducting 45 minute interviews so just imagine how many discs that would be,” she pondered adding the interviews have since been digitized.
She had to choose portraits from an extensive collection of the artist’s works.
“The university has one of the largest collections for this artist,” she said.
“ He was Russian, but he had a strong connection to this area. He lived in Banff for a while and he’s actually buried in Brocket. He was very well liked,” she said.
“I wanted it to have diversity. I didn’t just want it to be men, so there’s women and children too,“ she said adding while there was a lot of information and interviews on some of the subjects, there wasn’t any for some of them like one portrait of a child.
She noted most of the works in the exhibit were drawn from 67 works which were donated back in 2012 by BMO Financing, which were added to 50 other pieces already in the collection.
Sharing Stories, Bridging Culture runs Feb. 24- March 27 in the Helen Christou gallery.
