The Multiple Lives of Paintings

European Painting 1500–1800 from the MacKenzie Art Gallery

This online exhibition explores various moments in the lives of paintings—complex objects with lifespans that can extend well over five hundred years. Building on the success of The Multiple Lives of Drawings, the exhibition highlights twenty-two early modern European paintings (1500–1800) in the MacKenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina Collection. Original research by the curators, Sapienza University of Rome art historian Francesco Freddolini and Head Curator Timothy Long, has resulted in fresh attributions for a number of the paintings and discoveries that deepen our understanding of the long and varied lives of works on canvas and panel.

The exhibition is organized around four themes corresponding to four moments in the existence of a painting: production, reproduction, collecting, and research. Case studies, illustrated with video animations, bring to life these themes, clarifying the identities and motivations of producers, the reasons behind copy production, the essential role of collectors, and the current possibilities opened by digital research.

This online exhibition was launched in 2024 to coincide with an exhibition held at the MacKenzie Art Gallery from June 24, 2023 to June 23, 2024.

Curated By

• Dr. Francesco Freddolini
  Associate Professor of Art History, Sapienza University of Rome
• Timothy Long
  Head Curator, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina

History

The collection of early modern paintings at the MacKenzie Art Gallery is the product of the vision of the gallery’s namesake, Norman MacKenzie, K.C. (1869–1936). In the early decades of the twentieth century, the Regina lawyer began to build a collection of art that he hoped would one day serve as the nucleus for a public art museum of national stature. Early on, his efforts were devoted to acquiring paintings by Italian Renaissance masters, a difficult task given a lack of sound advice and adequate financial resources. When MacKenzie was appointed to the Board of the National Gallery of Canada in 1925 as its first Western representative, he was disappointed to learn that his efforts had been largely misguided. Undaunted, he took the advice of gallery staff to focus instead on acquiring early modern works on paper from reputable London dealers. By his death in 1936, MacKenzie’s collection of pre-nineteenth-century European art numbered around two dozen paintings and an equal number of drawings.

These works, along with a collection of paintings, sculptures, and antiquities of diverse origins, were bequeathed to the University of Saskatchewan—then responsible for colleges in Saskatoon and Regina—along with instructions that a gallery be built in Regina to house them. In 1953 the first phase of the gallery was built as part of Regina College (now the University of Regina). Subsequent gallery directors and curators have worked to catalogue and research the collection. In 1990 the MacKenzie Art Gallery formally separated from the university, but it has continued to steward the University of Regina Collection, to which the paintings belong, as part of its broad educational mandate and ongoing relationship with the university.