Art School Confidential

Art School Confidential celebrates five decades of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa, representing the work of 50 artists who have taught and studied in the historic building located at 100 Laurier East since 1974. That year, artist, educator, administrator, and creator of the Canada Council’s ground-breaking Art Bank Collection, Suzanne Rivard Le Moyne, arrived at the University, where she brought together a formidable team of artists – several of whom had been her students at L’École des beaux arts in Montreal – and important art historians, to become the founding faculty members of the Department of Visual Arts.

As part of a bilingual university, the Department is unique among Canadian art schools: a dynamic and artistically productive site of exchange among artists and students from diverse language and cultural communities. The Department has largely been a hidden gem within the city of Ottawa, despite the many critically-acclaimed accomplishments of its artists and the wide-ranging impact of their works both in Canada and abroad.

Curator: Penny Cousineau-Levine
Assistant Curator: Chloë MacLeod-Boucher
French Translation: Marie-Camille Lalande
Editing: Rebecca Basciano, Véronique Couillard, Rachelle Dickenson, Meghan Ho
Exhibition Designer: Sam Loewen
Installation: Jennifer Gilliland, Dan Austin, Rob Keefe, Mark Garland

We would also like to acknowledge the generosity of the following donors, who made this exhibition possible:
Claudia Chowaniec
Mayo Graham
Evelyn Greenberg
Reesa Greenberg
Martha Hanna
Victoria Henry
Charlie Hill
Julie Hodgson & Michael Ashley
Joy B. Kardish
Mireille Lavigne
Joanne Lochhead
Gerald Naimer
Ottawa Art Society
Karen Oxorn
Safdie Architects
Pierre Luc St-Laurent
Stonecroft Foundation
Léo Tousignant
Anonymous

This exhibition is realized with the support of the City of Ottawa, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa.