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Art Gallery of Hamilton announces William Kurelek. The Messenger

The Art Gallery of Hamilton presents William Kurelek. The Messenger. On view from January 28 to April 29, WILLIAM KURELEK: THE MESSENGER is the first exhibition of William Kurelek’s (1927 – 1977) work in a quarter century.

William Kurelek This is the Nemesis 1965 mixed media on masonite 114.8 x 115.6 cm Art Gallery of Hamilton, Gift of Mrs. J.A. McCuaig, 1966

his project is an ambitious collaboration between the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and Winnipeg Art Gallery. With loans from institutions and individuals from across Canada, as well as the United States and Great Britain, and comprising over eighty important paintings, William Kurelek: The Messenger is the largest exhibition of the artist’s work ever to be mounted.

William Kurelek—who was born in Alberta, raised in Manitoba and settled in Toronto—was an intriguing combination of everyman and visionary, and his work is equally complex. Widely recognized as a painter of reminiscences of his Prairie childhood and a chronicler of the experiences of various cultural groups in Canada, Kurelek conjured a sense of a timeless and innocent past. But there is another, equally important, Kurelek: the anguished prophet of a modern apocalypse, his art an indictment of the secular age and a testament to his unwavering Roman Catholic faith. Kurelek was at his best and most challenging when he successfully bridged the pastoral and the prophetic, combined memory and message. This exhibition explores the various ways in which he strove to reconcile the two poles of his thinking and practice—in essence, his being.

This exhibition is a collaboration between the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the Winnipeg Art Gallery and is co-curated by Tobi Bruce (AGH), Andrew Kear (WAG) and Mary Jo Hughes (AGGV). This project is generously funded by the Canadian Government through the Department of Canadian Heritage Museums Assistance Program. – www.artgalleryofhamilton.com

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