{"id":381754,"date":"2026-03-12T18:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/381754\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T18:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:05:10","slug":"bob-rennie-and-family-donate-two-dozen-contemporary-artworks-to-national-gallery-of-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/381754\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Rennie and family donate two dozen contemporary artworks to National Gallery of Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ottawa’s National Gallery in January, 2023. Vancouver art collector Bob Rennie and his family have now donated 284 gifts to the institution.Blair Gable\/Blair Gable Photography<\/p>\n

Vancouver art collector Bob Rennie and his family are donating two dozen works of contemporary art to Ottawa\u2019s National Gallery of Canada, bringing their total number of gifts to the institution to 284.<\/p>\n

The National Gallery said the works, by two Canadian and two American artists, <\/b>were valued at more than $33-million.<\/p>\n

They include two pieces by Kerry James Marshall, the <\/b>renowned Chicago-based contemporary artist whose work highlights Black life. One is his 2003 installation Wake, which includes a model sailboat and portrait medallions of descendants of the first wave of Africans brought to Jamestown, Va., evoking the history of the transatlantic trade of enslaved peoples and their connections to the present. <\/p>\n

Nature meets culture in Sylvia Safdie\u2019s art<\/a><\/p>\n

Rennie said that he had come upon Wake as a gift directly from Marshall, whose work he has supported for many years, and whom he considers one of the most important living artists. The collector is 69 and considering what to do with the works he has amassed in his lifetime; he did not want to sell Wake, since it was itself a gift, but wanted to ensure it had a future with as broad an audience as possible. <\/p>\n

He said that his family seeks out homes that can serve as strong long-term custodians for his donated works. <\/p>\n

With Wake, he said, \u201cI want to make sure these stories are preserved forever. The National Gallery, he added, \u201dcan afford to preserve, conserve, lend, ship, and insure it. So the chances of this work travelling, being lent to other museums and being spoken about are very high.”<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Kerry James Marshall’s 2003 installation ‘Wake,’ which includes a model sailboat and portrait medallions of descendants of the first wave of Africans brought to Jamestown, Va.Blaine Campbell\/Courtesy of the Rennie Museum<\/p>\n

The latest gift also includes what will be the National Gallery\u2019s first works by photo-conceptualist Christopher Williams, whose practice investigates consumer culture and society\u2019s collective anxieties. The 17 pieces will include both individual photos and broader installations.<\/p>\n

It also includes pieces by two Canadians, including Vancouver-based Jin-me Yoon, a 2025 winner of the Governor General\u2019s Award in Visual and Media Arts. Yoon\u2019s photo suite Souvenirs of the Self (1991\u20132001) reckons with stereotypes around migration and belonging in Canada through six postcard-style photographs of the artist at tourist sites in Banff, Alta. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Prototype for New Understanding #10 is part of a series of soft sculptures by artist Brian Jungen that repurpose Nike Air Jordan shoes as Northwest Coast Indigenous masks.Aaron Wynia\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

And there are four pieces by B.C.-based artist Brian Jungen, whose mother was a member of the Dane-zaa First Nation and whose father was Swiss-born. Among them are two sculptural works made from Nike Air Jordan sneakers and their shoeboxes. One of them, Prototype for New Understanding #10 (2001), is part of a sculpture series in which Jungen transforms the sneakers into forms resembling masks from Northwest Coast Indigenous communities. <\/p>\n

Rennie, an executive in the real-estate industry, said in an interview after the announcement Wednesday that he estimated the total value of his family\u2019s donations to the National Gallery over time amounts to about $65-million \u2013 which the gallery did not confirm. The Rennie family also announced a major gift last June<\/a> of 61 works worth $22.8-million.<\/p>\n

\u201cBob Rennie\u2019s clarity of vision and long-standing commitment to artists at pivotal moments in their careers have helped shape one of the most significant collections of contemporary art in Canada,\u201d Jean-Fran\u00e7ois B\u00e9lisle, the National Gallery\u2019s director and chief executive, said in a press release. \u201cThe works entrusted to us today are powerful, ambitious, and define our time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Ottawa’s National Gallery in January, 2023. Vancouver art collector Bob Rennie and his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[4320,365,362,4309,363,364,4321,9,4302,4322,995,4301,4314,4315,4311,4303,4300,366,179,2597,18,117,440,4313,4307,4333,4304,4305,3428,19,17,4310,3521,3136,4323,4306,4328,4329,4331,4326,4330,4324,4327,430,4317,4318,790,4316,4325,4308,82,4319,4312,4222,66,4332],"class_list":{"0":"post-381754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-arts-news","12":"tag-artsanddesign","13":"tag-artsdesign","14":"tag-bc","15":"tag-breaking-news","16":"tag-breaking-news-video","17":"tag-british-columbia","18":"tag-canada","19":"tag-canada-news","20":"tag-canada-sports","21":"tag-canada-sports-news","22":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","23":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","24":"tag-canadian-news","25":"tag-design","26":"tag-economy","27":"tag-education","28":"tag-eire","29":"tag-entertainment","30":"tag-environment","31":"tag-federal-government","32":"tag-foreign-news","33":"tag-globe-and-mail","34":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","35":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","36":"tag-government","37":"tag-ie","38":"tag-ireland","39":"tag-life-news","40":"tag-lifestyle","41":"tag-local-news","42":"tag-manitoba","43":"tag-national-news","44":"tag-new-brunswick","45":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","46":"tag-northwest-territories","47":"tag-nova-scotia","48":"tag-nunavut","49":"tag-ontario","50":"tag-pei","51":"tag-photos","52":"tag-political-news","53":"tag-political-opinion","54":"tag-politics","55":"tag-politics-news","56":"tag-quebec","57":"tag-sports-news","58":"tag-technology","59":"tag-travel","60":"tag-trudeau","61":"tag-us-news","62":"tag-world-news","63":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}