Anomalies: The Things You Find In a Vault!

Through the years most public collections receive peculiar objects. The Art Gallery of Windsor is no exception. This exhibition of approximately thirty items brings to light old master paintings that have been cleaned and proven to be by artists other than those to whom they were attributed, more recent works that have been found in attics and basements and, after being conserved, have become treasures of our collection of Canadian art, and recent work by such artists as William Ronald that were left by the artist after a workshop but not brought into the collection because of questions concerning ownership or aesthetic intention.

Other items in the vault are anomalous because they have no direct relationship to other works in the collection. Among these objects there are, for example, two sterling silver platters with repoussé design by Pablo Picasso depicting his mistress Jacqueline, an architectural medallion by the American architect Louis Sullivan, and a twentieth-century Japanese Wedding Kimono made of embroidered silk.

The exhibition offered a rare opportunity to see treasures seldom exhibited and to ponder the various ways a public collection is assembled through the decades.