The Honourable Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, announces arts and culture investments at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.

The Agnes Etherington Art Centre has been awarded two significant grants totaling $167,700 by Canadian Heritage’s Museum Assistance Program (MAP) in support of an exhibition on the early decades of the Canadian Group of Painters, 1933-1953, and for upgrades to collection storage facilities.

“Over the years, MAP support has been crucial to our work as stewards of a nationally-ranked collection,” says Janet M. Brooke, Director of the Art Centre. “This funding is especially welcome as it supports a major, nationally touring exhibition of Canadian art and a key project in our vaults that protects fragile works of art on behalf of all Canadians.”

The exhibition, A Vital Force: The Canadian Group of Painters, will shed new light on the artistic and social impact of the first collective to aspire to cross-country representation of modern artists. The exhibition will feature paintings by renowned Canadian artists such as André Biéler, Jack Bush, Emily Carr and Lawren S. Harris. The Art Centre will use the financial support from MAP to research, develop and present the exhibition, which opens March 2013 at the Art Centre.

A Vital Force, curated by Alicia Boutilier, will travel to the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ont., the Owens Art Gallery in Sackville, N.B., and the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon, Sask., with a major catalogue published by the Art Centre. Community members of all ages will have opportunities to engage with the exhibition through extensive public programs.

The Honourable Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, announced the MAP funding at the Art Centre on July 31.

More information about the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.