The clever folk at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, adept at garnering 3/4 of a billion dollars in government grant money (and countless thousands in private "donations"), have put up their "happy holidays" message and closed shop for "the holidays."
That is for TWO weeks!
No Holiday Shows. No Holiday Specials. No Holiday Eggnog Courtesy of the Museum.
They need to to save all that money for exhibitions which no-one visits, and which the Canadian government funds in the millions, not to repeat myself.
They have found an artist which best exemplifies their godless and anti-christian sentiment, as they sign off, to glean all the "joy and celebration" of OUR Christian Christmas season.
William Ronald's painting is in the gallery's permanent collection and acquisitions, amongst many others. And it is clearly a "choice" the AGM made to represent its Christmas wishes, aka Holiday Greetings, through his abstract expressionist painting.
A Happy Abstract Christmas Holidays to Everyone!
William Ronald's abstract bio is here:
William Ronald was the founder of Painters Eleven, the pioneer movement of Modernism in Canada. Their first exhibition, in 1954, was also the first major commercial display of abstract art in Toronto. As well, Ronald is known for his series of non-representational portraits of Canadian Prime Ministers (1977-84).Imagine that: "Abstract Furniture!" Flows nicely into Abstract Christmas.
William Ronald graduated from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto in 1951 and began working as a display artist for the Robert Simpson Company department store. In 1952, he visited New York City where he studied with the American Abstract Expressionist painter, Hans Hofmann. Back in Canada, he persuaded Simpson’s to pair abstract paintings with furniture displays for a show titled Abstracts at Home, a creative way to get the public to accept non-representational art. Painters Eleven came together as a result of this show. Ronald exhibited with the group in Toronto (1953-55) and in New York (1956) (The River, 1956). [Source: National Gallery of Canada]
Rolan's signature painting, serving as a Christmas Card for the AGM, is aptly titled: "Untitled," from an exhibition in 1990.
The clever artist (and the Clever AGM Professionals) used the scattered, abstracted, red, and the green swoops of paint, to signify abstracted "Holly" and "Ivy," for the AGM's X-Mas card, to wish us all an Abstract Holly (and Ivy) X-Mas.