Annual Bulletin 4, 1980-1981
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Introduction
by Joseph Martin
Article en français
Page 1
The introduction to the Annual Bulletin is usually written by the Director of the
National Gallery. For the fourth annual bulletin, however, we must make
an exception, owing to the departure of the Director, Miss Hsio-Yen Shih,
on March 31, 1981. As Acting Director, it falls to me to perform this task
which Miss Shih did not have time to carry out before she left.
The year 1980-1981 marked the centennial of
the National Gallery, and throughout the year there were exhibitions
of every kind to celebrate the event. In addition to the important historical
exhibition, To found a national gallery: the Royal Canadian Academy
of Arts, 1880-1913, which launched the celebration, I would like to
mention two other exhibitions which aroused a great deal of interest and
which, though they are quite different from one another, aptly demonstrate
the vitality of our institution - namely, Pluralities / 1980 / Pluralités,
a mirror of the past decade, and The Young Van Dyck, an exhibition
of the works of the seventeenth-century master of the portrait.
Despite budget restrictions, we were able to enrich our art collection with such important acquisitions as Skeletons
in the Studio by James Ensor, Foggini's marble Portrait Bust of
Cosimo III de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, Cornelius Krieghoff's Portrait of a Man,
and works by contemporary artists such as Paterson
Ewen, John McEwen, Michael Snow, and Serge Tousignant.
I would like to pay particular tribute, at
this time, to the remarkable adaptability and loyalty of the National Gallery
staff.
In order to carry out a coherent programme
of museum activities, special qualities of tenacity and endurance, which
go beyond the contribution a museum staff might normally be expected to
bear, have been called for. Despite the instability of the present and
uncertainty over the future, the continued cooperation of staff members
has enabled us to fulfill our role to the best of our ability. The existence
of this institution depends on the enthusiasm and hard work of these
people. The time has come to express our gratitude. In my capacity as
Acting Director I would like to praise all the Gallery's employees for
their work during 1980-1981.
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