The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Tour

Join us on May 3rd when we will visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the oldest art museum in Canada and a leading museum in North America. Its collection showcases Quebec and Canadian heritage and international art from a critical and intercultural perspective and comprises more than 45,000 paintings, sculptures, graphic artworks, photographs, multimedia installations and decorative art objects dating from antiquity to the present. We will return to the Club afterwards for cocktails and canapés!

Meeting Time: 5:30 p.m.

Meeting Location: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Address: 1380 Sherbrooke Street West

Ticket Price: $50.00 + taxes and service. Canapés Chef's choice and one glass of wine (white or red), or beer are included after the visit including the entrance fees to the Museum.

Please note that this visit is informal. Our group will meet at the museum at 5:30 pm where one of our members who is affiliated with the MMFA will give an "unofficial" tour! Any participant (registered or not) joining the University Club of Montreal group will be charged in full.

About the Exhibition: PARALL(ELLES) A History of Women in Design

Organized in collaboration with the Stewart Program for Modern Design, this major exhibition celebrates the instrumental role women have played in the world of design through a rich corpus of artworks and objects dating from the mid-19th century onwards. In addition, it examines the reasons why women are underrepresented in the history of this discipline and encourages an expanded understanding of what constitutes design.

Parall(elles) highlights the breadth and complexity of design pieces made by American and Canadian women by situating these works against the backdrop of social, political and personal issues that shaped their experiences across time. The exhibition also considers the intersectionality of gender, identity, race, culture and class to provide a deeper understanding of the varied roles and achievements of women. It traces the development of educational and professional opportunities available to women, the evolution of the status of crafts and the impact that women's rights movements had on their practices. Finally, beyond revisiting traditional definitions of "design," Parall(elles) opens a window onto a world of magnificent beauty and skill.

Organizations Affiliated With PARALL(ELLES) A History of Women in Design.

This exhibition is part of the Stewart Program for Modern Design's presentation Designed by Women, curated by David A. Hanks, which comprises a website exploring the joint collections of the MMFA and the Stewart Program from the perspective of women designers; I am grateful for their suggestion that the Museum should transform its idea into a major exhibition.

The Designed by Women project became the exhibition ​Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design under the aegis of Jennifer Laurent, the Museum's Curator of Decorative Arts and Design. Starting from the prodigious collections of the MMFA and the Stewart Program, but looking beyond those works to include in her project other objects vital to the theory she wished to propose, she has succeeded in offering another narrative that does justice to its complexity and quality.

The exhibition Parall(elles) is part of the program launched by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to reinstate the so greatly deserved honourable status of women artists and designers, whose outstanding work has been neglected and even ignored, for far too long.

For more information, visit:https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/parallelles/​