Collections
Paintings and sculptures by (non-Indigenous) Canadian artists account for around 4% of the collection.
Significant paintings were donated to the University in the 1980s by Jack and Frances Barwick, whose gift included four David Milne oil paintings, and by Malcolm and Donna Welch, whose tastes encompassed painters working in a realist vein, like Tim Zuck and Medrie MacPhee.
A compelling current of abstraction runs through the painting collection, which numbers 871 works. Paintings by pioneering Québec modernists Rita Letendre, Guido Molinari and Claude Tousignant figure prominently. The Regina School is represented by Ted Godwin, Art McKay, Ron Bloore and Ken Lochhead, later based in Ottawa, where he became a generous donor to CUAG.
More recent artists whose paintings the University cares for include John Hartman, Joane Cardinal-Schubert, Jane Martin and Cynthia Girard. Their works manifest diverse aesthetic influences and geographical regions across Canada.
There are relatively few (355) sculptures in the collection. They tend to be abstract and several are monumental. The St. Patrick’s Building, which houses CUAG, is flanked by two major welded-steel sculptures: Wings by Gord Smith and Tundra (For Barnett Newman) by Robert Murray.
The collection features other sculptors working in abstraction, including Henry Saxe, Catherine Burgess, Kosso Eloul and Gunter Nolte.