Collections
Our first contemporary exhibition and publication focused on a First Nations artist: Robert Houle.
The exhibition, research, acquisition and publication of the work of Indigenous artists have since been among CUAG’s foremost priorities.
There are 1461 works by First Nations and Métis artists in the University’s collection. It features the largest publicly held body of Meryl McMaster photographs and substantive groups of works on paper by Carl Beam, Rita Letendre, Patrick Amos, Lance Belanger and Tony Hunt, among other artists.
Locavore, a bronze sculpture by Mary Anne Barkhouse installed on the Carleton University quad in 2015, a monumental painting by Joane Cardinal-Schubert and videos by Kent Monkman and Rebecca Belmore are among the outstanding individual works.
Art collectors have demonstrated extraordinary generosity to Carleton University. An exceptional example is the 1999 gift from Dr. George MacDonald, a scholar of Haida art and former director of the Canadian Museum History, and his wife, Joanne, an anthropologist and land claims researcher.
The George and Joanne MacDonald Collection of Northwest Coast Graphic Art features 608 prints made by such artists as Bill Reid, Susan Point, Robert Davidson, Freda Diesing and Ron Hamilton, among many other artists. It is a singular record of printmaking activity on the Northwest Coast from the 1960s through the 1980s.