Canada

Canadian government commits to enacting artist’s resale rights law

The recently passed federal budget includes a pledge to provide artists royalties when their work is resold on the secondary market

Final fraud suspect in vast Norval Morrisseau forgery operation found guilty

Jeff Cowan had been accused of sourcing forgeries and fabricating false provenance documents

Heffel’s autumn sales, including auction of art from collection of Canada’s oldest company, tally $22.1m

Across the day’s four sales in Toronto, the auction house set new secondary-market records for 16 artists’ work

Art Gallery of Ontario gets gift of more than 450 works

The lion’s share of the donated pieces, from the late collectors Carol and Morton Rapp, are prints and photographs

Toronto’s Gardiner Museum, devoted to ceramics, reopens after $11m renovation

The museum now boasts a gallery dedicated to Indigenous ceramics, expanded education facilities and enough space to display around 40% of its collection

Prizesnews

Tania Willard wins Canada’s top contemporary art prize

The British Columbia-based artist, who is a member of the Secwépemc First Nation, described the experience of taking home the C$100,000 Sobey Art Award as “a waking dream”

Vatican Museums will return rare Indigenous kayak to Canada

The Vatican is working with the Canadian Catholic Church to return Indigenous artefacts

Art Toronto gets sales boost from baseball World Series

Canada’s biggest art fair appeared to benefit from the Toronto Blue Jays’ first crack at baseball’s top trophy since 1993

Art Toronto reflects Canadian art scene’s emphasis on Indigenous representation

Canada’s largest art fair spotlights a growing market for work by Indigenous artists while challenging stereotypes and expectations

Canadian art museum reveals architect and vision for campus overhaul

The McMichael Canadian Art Collection, world’s most important collection of works by the Group of Seven, has picked Hariri Pontarini Architects to expand and modernise its facilities

Art Toronto gives Latin American artists pride of place with new curated section

Amid trade war between US and Canada, Toronto’s largest art fair strengthens ties with Latin America’s art scene

Storied media arts centre launches emergency fundraising appeal to avoid closure

Vivo Media Arts Centre has been a cornerstone of the new media community in Vancouver, throughout Canada and internationally since 1973

Filmpreview

New documentary gives E.J. Hughes, painter of lyrical Canadian landscapes, his due

“The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes” is premiering in Vancouver as interest in Hughes’s life and work grows among Canadian collectors and institutions

Possible medieval artefacts, discovered at Canadian thrift store, will form basis of university archaeology class

Students at a Vancouver university will analyse the designs and materials with a view to identifying where and when the items originate from

Prizesnews

Sculptor Brian Jungen wins top Canadian art prize

The $C100,000 Audain Prize for the Visual Arts recognises the achievements of artists from Canada’s westernmost province, British Columbia

Vancouver Art Gallery selects architects for second attempt at new building

After abandoning a costly design by Swiss starchitects, the museum has picked Vancouver-based Formline Architecture and Urbanism and Toronto-based KPMB Architects to take on the project

Filmreview

New Sky Hopinka documentary puts viewers in position of powwow participants

The artist and film-maker’s new feature, “Powwow People”, highlights the very contemporary ways in which Indigenous traditions persist

Filmreview

Kahlil Joseph’s sprawling audio-visual compendium BLKNWS returns as a feature-length film

Inspired by the “Encyclopedia Africana” conceived by W.E.B. Du Bois, the filmic collage of African and diasporic culture is on the film festival circuit

Claws for celebration: Canada’s first cat museum launching with Montreal pop-up exhibition

After the museum’s fur-st show, founder Aqeela Nahani hopes to open a purr-manent space in 2026

Magnum Photos agency’s first exhibition, lost for a half-century, to make its North American debut

Materials from the 1955-56 exhibition, including 83 photographs, were rediscovered in Austria in 2006

Relocation of popular public sculpture called off after Vancouver residents claim it would block their views

The dispute over the future location of “Trans Am Rapture” has prompted duelling petitions, with the municipal government calling off the reinstallation to find a new site

New Canadian art museum seeks to connect disparate disciplines and a university campus

Simon Fraser University near Vancouver will open its new Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum in September

Amid a wave of global crises, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov’s Ship of Tolerance sets sail again—with added potency

The 20-year-old collaborative installation, which recently dropped anchor in Ontario, will travel to Uzbekistan next

Canadanews

As North America’s oldest company faces bankruptcy, the sale of its collection raises fears among Indigenous communities

Little is known about the vast collection of art and artefacts the Hudson’s Bay Company amassed from its founding in 1670, but experts believe it includes many important pieces of Canada’s First Nations and colonial heritage

Key player in Norval Morrisseau forgery ring pleads guilty

James White, a prominent member in the vast network, pleaded guilty to forgery and trafficking

Vancouver Art Gallery to lay off around 30 employees

The layoffs come amid a $23.4m deficit in the last fiscal year and represent around 20% of unionised employees

Missing Tom Thomson painting at centre of $8m lawsuit returned to owner

The small landscape painting was consigned to a Toronto auction house a decade ago, but had not been seen since 2021

Art Gallery of Ontario acquires more than 200 Peter Hujar photographs

The acquisition comes as the museum’s photography department prepares to celebrate its 25th anniversary

National Gallery of Canada receives gift of 61 works valued at $16.8m

The donation, from the Vancouver-based collector and businessman Bob Rennie, is the largest in the gallery's history

Prizesnews

Finalists for Canada’s top contemporary art prize, the Sobey Art Award, revealed

The prize, now in its 22nd year, will be the subject of a group show in Ottawa this autumn, and the winner will be revealed in November