Page 23 - ECF-Thrive-Nov-Dec_2024

AGAin!
The Art Gallery of Alberta celebrates its 100th anniversary and the women who helped build it
By Tom Ndekezi
hen a group of women involved in the Edmonton arts scene first met to discuss the idea of putting on an art
exhibition, few would have imagined it one day becoming one of the country’s largest art galleries.
Few, that is, outside of Art Association member Maud Bowman, who envisioned growing the exhibition of loaned artworks into
a permanent, Edmonton-based collection.
After the first exhibition attracted more than 2,000 visitors over three days to the Palm
room of the Hotel Macdonald — Bowman organized the group under the banner of the Edmonton Museum of the Arts, and served as
its first director. The only problem was that the Edmonton Museum of the Arts didn’t have a museum, so while the group slowly put together a collection of local and international works, it had to find venues to host the exhibitions on an as- needed basis including libraries, car dealerships and other friendly spaces in the city. The Edmonton Arts Museum would exist for the next 30 years as part art gallery, part traveling show.
“[Maud] strongly felt that as the city was growing, it needed a place for arts and culture
for the citizens of Edmonton,” says Catherine Crowston, executive director and chief curator of the Art Gallery of Alberta. “Interestingly enough, as a woman art museum director at that time, she didn’t get paid a salary. It was only, actually, until
ecf.ca 23