A Gift Promised To Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

From January 17 to April 22, the Museum will present over 130 prints from one of the most distinguished private print collections in Canada.

The exhibition Impressions of Humanity: The Freda and Irwin Browns Collection of Master Prints encompasses five hundred years of printmaking and includes such remarkably diverse figures as Dürer, Lucas van Leyden, Daumier, Degas, Manet, Gauguin, Vuillard, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Munch, Kirchner, Nolde, Johns, Dine and Freud. It also features some particularly rare prints by artists like Rembrandt, Cézanne, Kandinsky, Picasso and Kollwitz, among others.

This is the first time that this collection, presented exclusively at the Museum, has ever been exhibited to the public as a comprehensive ensemble. It is a testament to two great collectors' discerning eyes and hearts.

The generosity and humanism of Freda and Irwin Browns have led them to a decision that will profoundly enrich the lives of Montrealers and all Canadians: these distinguished art lovers have promised to donate their extraordinary collection of prints to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. "This gift will transform the profile of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' collection of prints, making it one of the finest in Canada. These prints will enable us to dramatically expand the possibilities of future exhibitions for the public, while preserving as a unity this unique and very personal collection," declared Nathalie Bondil, Director of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Many of the works focus on women. Twenty-five Rembrandt etchings of remarkable quality include self-portraits, Old Testament narratives, the famous "Faust" and, of course, images of his beloved wife, Saskia, notable among them a very rare and moving study he etched of her shortly before her death. The nine exhibited works by Picasso present all the women who had a profound impact on his turbulent life.
The collection includes prints executed in a broad range of mediums - woodcuts, engravings, etchings, drypoints, aquatints and lithographs - tracing technical and stylistic changes in printmaking over the course of several centuries. Distinguished by the fine connoisseurship and the extraordinary quality of impressions presented - including some works of great rarity - the prints also document the collector's passionate exploration of "what it is to be human."

Hilliard T. Goldfarb, Associate Chief Curator and Curator of Old Masters, is in charge of the presentation Impressions of Humanity: The Freda and Irwin Browns Collection of Master Prints.

A 104-page catalogue, illustrating all the works in the collection, has been published by the Museum. Texts are by Irwin Browns, Hilliard T. Goldfarb and Nathalie Bondil. -- www.mmfa.qc.ca