Page 24 - ECF-Thrive-Nov-Dec_2024

“SHE STRONGLY FELT THAT AS THE CITY WAS GROWING, IT NEEDED A PLACE FOR ARTS AND CULTURE FOR THE CITIZENS OF EDMONTON”
— Catherine Crowston
she retired and was replaced by a male director that there was a salaried position.”
Despite working against sexism, prejudice and the city’s growing but still-naive understanding of the arts, Bowman’s influence was undeniable. Her mantle would later be taken up by other enterprising women, including Dorothy “Bobby” Dyde, whose curatorial reforms helped modernize a collection that is now over 6,500 works strong, and Abigail Condell, who donated the funds necessary to build the Art Gallery its first purpose-built space in the Arthur Blow Condell Memorial Building. That legacy even extends to Crowston, who assumed the role of chief curator in 1998 and eventually executive director in 2012. During her tenure, she has seen the gallery through a name change — the gallery rebranded as the Alberta Art Gallery in 2005 — the opening of a new building and, as of 2024, the Art Gallery of Alberta’s (AGA’s) 100-year anniversary.
“Those [women] were really the backbone of some of the activities that the gallery relies on regarding audience engagement and fund development, but they were doing it a lot of the time in a volunteer capacity,” Crowston says. “As we look through the history of the art galleries — with the AGA and probably with others across the country — those women make profound contributions to making sure that the art galleries survive, thrive and build community in the places in which they are.”
A lot has changed since the days of Bowman’s itinerant art museum, not to mention the Art Gallery of Alberta now occupying one of the most iconic buildings in all of Edmonton. A lot has also stayed the same however, including the gallery’s decades-long commitment to providing community art programming in the form of art lessons, open studios and outreach events.
“Artistic literacy is so important for a person to be well-rounded,” says local artist Lynn Malin, speaking of Art Gallery of Alberta’s role as a space for art education as well as art appreciation. “When you listen to music or read books or go to school, you learn things you wouldn’t necessarily learn anywhere else. But, in art, you learn so much that you don’t even realize you’re
24 Together we thrive