Collections
The University’s collection of European art today numbers some 1652 works.
The collection began in 1967 with a gift of prints from Gordon Wood, a professor of English at Carleton and chair of the University Painting and Sculpture Committee.
CUAG was the recipient of a remarkable financial bequest from Professor Wood. Gallery director Michael Bell used funds from the Wood endowment to acquire such notable prints as The Passion (1521), an extraordinary series of engravings by the Netherlandish artist Lucas Van Leyden.
The generosity of donors is today reflected in the European collection’s two key areas of strength.
The first is a body of 531 eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French prints donated by W. McAllister Johnson, an influential professor and scholar of art history. Johnson chose prints more for what they reveal of their time and role in society, rather than for their individual iconic value.
The second, initiated with an endowment from Dr. Truda Rosenberg in honour of her husband, Imre Rosenberg, focuses on prints of Hebrew Bible subjects.