ISC / SCI Conference - 2010
Congrès de la SCI / ISC - 2010

Conference Banquet – May 26
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion, 1380 Sherbrooke St. West

The Wednesday evening banquet will be held at Le Collectionneur, the private dining room of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Just upstairs from the very elegant gift shop, it will provide us with our own space to chat and relax.

The Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion. Photograph from Flickr.com: Creative Commons, taken by wallyg.		Here's looking at you: a view inside the Museum. Photograph from Flickr.com: Creative Commons, taken by Paul Lowry. Location The Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion is located at 1380 Sherbrooke St. West. It's about a half-hour stroll, or a ten-minute ride along Sherbrooke Street on the #24 bus route; it is also close to the Guy-Concordia metro station. Directions to the Museum from Dawson College can be found online.
Back to Top About the Museum Canada's oldest art institution was founded in 1860 as the Art Association of Montreal, and from the 1880s on it added regularly to its growing collection. In 1909, the collection was enlarged substantially by a bequest of paintings and ceramics from Agnes and William Learmont. Realizing that their holdings would soon outgrow available space, the Association council decided against extending their current gallery and instead acquired land on Sherbrooke Street for a completely new building. This imposing edifice was designed by Montreal architects Edward and William Maxwell, and opened to the public in 1912. To better reflect the diverse nature of its collection, the institution was renamed the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1948; a gallery devoted to modern art was opened a year later. The year of the Museum's centenary was also, auspiciously, marked by the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec – and the death of modernist painter Paul-Émile Borduas, whose Black Star would later be donated to the Museum by his friend Gérard Lortie. At this time, the Museum also began holding large-scale exhibits (such as Tutankhamoun and Picasso) designed to appeal to both art lovers and the general public. A major expansion of the Museum took place when the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion was built across the street from the 1912 building. Designed by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie, it opened to the public in 1991 with a Jean-Paul Riopelle retrospective. With this striking new venue, the Museum was able to double its exhibition space, and now welcomes half a million visitors every year. Among its outstanding holdings is a collection of some 5,000 pieces of decorative art donated by Liliane and David Stewart in 2000 – the former Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts in its entirety. Back to Top Museum Moments in May Maybe you will be tempted to pay a return visit to the Museum! At the end of May there will be three exhibits in addition to the regular collection: • Pierre Dorion: paintings and photography (free exhibit) • Inspiria: a private collection of exceptional jewellery created in celebration of the Cirque du Soleil by a renowned Parisian firm (admission fee) • "We Want Miles": a multimedia tribute to jazz legend Miles Davis (admission fee) A later exhibit will feature the work of German artist Otto Dix (Sept. 24, 2010 – Jan. 2, 2011), followed by an exhibit of some 300 artifacts from ancient China, including life-size terra cotta soldiers, in the winter of 2011.

Back to Top